Khomeini

first time in print

the real story of

the Iran revolution

ISBN 0-933488^

How British Secret Intelligence
Service spies plotted the downfall

How the Carter administration
set up the taking of 53 hostages
in Teheran

How the secret terrorist society,
the Muslim Brotherhood, brought
Khomeini to power

Robert Drevfuss

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'RANK LIN

Iraqi soldiers in Iran, 1980.

To The American People :
How To Use This Book

Hostage to Khomeini was designed in summer 1980
as an indictment of President Carter's role in
contributing to the downfall of the Shah and Khomeini's
seizure of power. It was — and is — a story that the
American people desperately need to know.

Now, in 1981, this book must be used to great effect
with the incoming government of Ronald Reagan. It is
the political responsibility of the American people, once
informed, to act in concert to prevent the next U.S.
administration from repeating the mistakes of the pre-
vious one. An opportunity exists for the entire Khomeini
regime to be swept away during 1981 and replaced with
a government of sanity.

But that will depend on the will of the American
citizenry. Byy two copies of this book, and send one to
your congressman. Ask your local bookseller to keep it in
stock. Ask your local newspaper to review it.

Let the officials in Washington know that the Amer-
ican people will not tolerate our government treating the
Khomeini regime as anything but the outlaw dictatorship
that it is.

—January 1,1981

1

L

by Robert Dreyfuss

with Thierry LeMarc

New Benjamin Franklin House

Publishing Company

New York

Hostage to Khomeini

Published by the New Benjamin Franklin House

Publishing Company, Inc.
Copyright © 1980 by Robert Dreyfuss

FIRST EDITION SECOND PRINTING

All rights reserved.

For information contact the publisher:
The New Benjamin Franklin House

Publishing Company
304 West 58th Street
New York 10019

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication
Hostage to Khomeini

1. Iran — Politics and government — 1941-1979.

2. Iran — Politics and government — 1979-

3. Khumayni, Ruh Allah. I. Title.
DS318.D73 955,053 80-24288
ISBN 0-933488-11-4

Designed by Gail Kay
Cover design by Alan Yue

Photo front cover: Sygma/ Alain Dejean
Photo back cover: James Morehead/Blackstone

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents

Preface vii

1 The Revolution by 'Our Friends' 1

2 How the British Brought Down

the Shah 28

3 Treason in Washington 54

4 Savak's Insane Ayatollah 80

5 Muslim Brotherhood I:

Britain's Plot Against Islam 99

6 Muslim Brotherhood II:
Headquarters in Egypt 128

7 Muslim Brotherhood III:

Clear and Present Danger 150

8 Ikhwan, U.S.A. 173

9 On the Brink of a New Dark Age 191
10 The Soviet Factor: 'Kim' Philby 216

Illustrations follow page 127.

W "I".

h

^

Author's Preface

The writing of this book was commissioned by Lyndon
H. LaRouche, founding editor of the Executive In-
telligence Review, and 1980 candidate for the Demo-
cratic Presidential nomination, as an indispensable con-
tribution to the political education of the American
people.

Perhaps more than any other individual, LaRouche
has succeeded in driving home the simple truth that
Ayatollah Khomeini represents a fundamental, moral
evil. At a time when the American ambassador to the

United Nations was calling Khomeini "a saint" and
President Carter himself was describing Khomeini's gang
of cutthroats as "our friends/' LaRouche identified
Khomeini as an immoral and vindictive old man whose
perverted brand of Islam bears no relation at all to real
religion.

But the origins of Khomeini seemed to be a mystery.
How is it possible an obsessive, fanatical mullah could

* *

VII

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

topple the mighty Shah of Iran? Newspapers and other
media shed no light on Khomeini's origins; to many, it
seemed that he came from nowhere. This unenlightened
state prevailed even among the top-most officials of the
fallen regime, who had been thrown into exile without a
clue as to how the Iranian revolution toppled the Peacock
Throne. It is said that even the late Shah of Iran himself
really never knew what hit him — until he read the

Executive Intelligence Review.

But there is really no mystery about the method by
which the Review discovered the "secret" behind
Khomeini.

The key to unlocking the otherwise apparent puzzle
of the Khomeini revolution is LaRouche's identification
of the worldwide battle between the representatives of
the so-called New Dark Ages faction and those forces
who are seeking to unleash a new era of unlimited
growth and industrialization throughout the world. Cer-
tainly, the existence of the Dark Ages faction is no secret,
explained LaRouche; for several centuries the British-
centered oligarchy has been spreading its gospel of
opposition to progress, of deliberate fostering of back-
wardness and religious cultism. The British economists
and social scientists — who like Parson Malthus gave the
name "the dismal science" to economics — have argued
in a chain stretching back into the seventeenth century
that science and technology are evil. For them, the
Chinese model of large, beast-like peasant populations
laboring under semi-feudal fiefdoms is the only "stable"

form of social organization.

It is the British, and their followers, who today hold
up China as the ideal for the developing countries of the

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

ix

Third World. And it is the British who sponsored Ayatol-
lah Khomeini's assault on the twentieth century in Iran.

Once that simple idea is understood, then the masses
of detail on exactly how the Iranian revolution took place
can easily be sorted out. Khomeini, in fact, did not make
a revolution. He was put in power from the outside, as a
convenient front man for a Dark Ages transformation of
Iran. Like the mythical Wizard of Oz, Khomeini is a
puffed up, turbaned magician who has enchanted fa^totK
many of Iran's unfortunate peasant population and its
youth — but he was installed, like a light bulb, by
a carefully orchestrated British Military Intelligence
operation.

This book tells that story. It also chronicles the
treasonous role of the Carter administration in collabo-
rating with the British in putting Khomeini into power.
The book is intended to serve as an indictment of a
highly placed fifth column inside the United States who
provided aid and comfort to the monstrous ayatollahs
and their secret society, the Muslim Brotherhood — even
after the taking of the American embassy in Teheran!

Not until Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry
Kissinger, Ramsey Clark, and Cyrus Vance are in prison
will this volume have served its purpose.

And not until the entire organization of the Muslim
Brotherhood worldwide, from its underground terrorist
cells in the Middle East, to its exile headquarters in
London, Geneva, and Malta, to its backers at prestigious
universities like Georgetown University in Washington,
D.C., is hunted down and destroyed will the countries of
the Muslim world be safe from the Khomeini disease.

In closing, I wish to acknowledge the exciting and

X

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

rewarding collaboration of my friends and colleagues at
the Executive Intelligence Review. As the Middle East
intelligence director of the EIR, it has been my privilege
to enjoy the assistance of experienced analysts Mark
Burdman, Judith Wyer, and Nancy Coker. In addition,
I wish to acknowledge the invaluable aid of my co-
author, Thierry Le Marc, EIR's European bureau Middle
East chief.

And, in particular, I wish to thank Criton Zoakos and
Christopher R. White, EIR's political intelligence direc-
tors, and my editor at Franklin House, Linda de Hoyos,

for their inspiration and support.

Robert Carmen Dreyfuss

November 7, 1980
New York City

Hostage to

Khomeini

The
Revolution

By 'Our Friends'

n Teheran, uncontrolled mobs surge through the
streets brandishing their newly acquired automatic
weapons, sacking public buildings and tearing down the
remains of the regime of the deposed Shah. The bloody
reign of terror has already begun. Quickly and silently,
top military and intelligence officers who have refused
to cooperate with the new government are executed by
unofficial assassination squads. In the cities, as in the
towns and villages, many hundreds more are murdered
by frenzied crowds. It is February 12, 1979, just hours
after the Ayatollah Khomeini has proclaimed the estab-
lishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In Washington, President Carter convenes a hurried
news conference to tell the world, "I believe the people
of Iran and the government will continue to be our

friends/*

1

2

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Many people are shocked by Carter s willingness to
befriend the bloody new regime. But the President* s
statement goes little noticed amid the international crisis
swirling around the revolution in Iran. A few days later,
when an organized band of hoodlums briefly seizes and
ransacks the American embassy in Teheran, Carters
remark would seem an ironic footnote in the gathering
storm of hatred and fanaticism whipped up by the
ayatollah and his Revolutionary Council In reality, the
President's official welcome to the Khomeini dictatorship
signaled a far deeper truth. Carter had great reason to
believe that the regime of the mullahs in Iran would

indeed be "our friend": He and his administration had
put Khomeini in power.

Not simply by inaction. The Carter administration —
with sober deliberation and with malice aforethought —
had given aid to the movement that organized the
overthrow of the Shah of Iran, The Carter administration
was involved every step of the way — from the propa-
ganda preparations to the supply of arms and ammuni-
tion, from the behind-the-scenes deals with traitors in
the Shah's military to the final ultimatum to the beaten
leader in January 1979 to leave Iran. Perhaps no other
chapter in American history is so replete with treachery
to the ideals upon which the nation was founded.

The real story of Iran's revolution is a tale that makes
spy stories like Paul Erdman's The Crash of '79 seem
tame by comparison. It is necessary to look behind the
closed doors of the world's most powerful and prestigious
banks, oil companies, and industrial corporations and
into the paneled board rooms of elite clubs such as the
New York Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal
Institute of International Affairs in London. Iran is the

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

3

battleground for a behind-the-scenes war that is still
raging among international circles of high finance and
their friends in the various intelligence services of the
NATO countries, Israel, and the Middle East.

Within the United States government, a relatively
small group of managers is responsible for the downfall
of the Shah. Heading the list are Zbigniew Brzezinski of
the National Security Council, former Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance, and the NSC's Iran Task Force special
coordinator, George Ball. Also involved are David New-
som and Henry Precht of the State Department, along
with U.S. Ambassador William H. Sullivan in Teheran;
Harold Brown and Charles Duncan at the Pentagon;
General Alexander Haig and General Robert Huyser of
NATO's command; and the Central Intelligence Agen-
cy's Admiral Stansfield Turner and Robert Bowie.

Working under this administrative elite is a stable of
Middle East and Iran specialists with long experience in
the field. We can name Richard Cottam of the University
of Pittsburgh; Marvin Zonis of the University of Chi-
cago; James Bill of the University of Texas at Austin;
Richard Falk and Bernard Lewis of Princeton; and
Thomas Ricks of Georgetown University. Together with
a select group of British intelligence agents and represen-
tatives of the secret society called the Muslim Brother-
hood, this group acted, from 1977 to 1979, as the liaison
between the on-the-ground organizers of the Khomeini
revolution and the Carter White House and the National
Security Council. Coordinator for the operation was
former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark.

As President Carter in January 1978 was embracing
the Shah and praising Iran as an "island of stability" in
the turbulent Middle East, his aides were already work-

4

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

5

ing to hurl this ally of the United States into the tumult
of revolution.

As early as 1977, numbers of officials in the Carter
administration were aware that the United States was
quietly giving support to the forces opposed to the Shah
that were then gathering around the Ayatollah Kho-
meini. But only a few knew the strategy behind the on-
going U.S. intelligence contacts with Khomeini's advis-
ers. The information was highly secret and was provided
only on a "need to know" basis; dozens of low-level
functionaries at the State Department, the Pentagon,
and the CIA operated partially or almost totally in the
dark. To them, it seemed clear only that the developing
alliance between the White House and the Muslim

Brotherhood must be part of a geopolitical strategy
aimed at the Soviet Union,

For the naive, superficial explanations were provided.
During 1978, for example, rumors began to circulate in
the intelligence community in Washington that the CIA
had detected the fact that the Shah had cancer and that,
despite treatments, he would soon die. In this version,
the death of the Shah would leave a leadership gap in
Iran that could not easily be filled by the normal
succession process. In the expected chaos, the CIA was
said to believe, the Soviet Union could take advantage of
Iran's crisis to intervene. It was argued that the United
States must begin contacts with the opposition to the
Shah — which was primarily religious-based — to prepare
a replacement government. This story may have satisfied
junior officers in the government bureaucracy who no-
ticed, little by little, the growing pattern of overt and
covert U.S. links with the radical anti-Shah forces.

The American people were told nothing.

The driving force in the Carter administration behind
the "Islamic card" against the Soviet Union was National
Security chief Zbigniew Brzezinski, Since 1977, Brzezin-
ski had declared in public his view that "Islamic funda-
mentalism" is a "bulwark against communism." In an
interview with the New York Times after the Iranian
revolution, Brzezinski proclaimed that Washington
should "welcome" the resurgent force of Islam in the
Middle East because, as an ideology, it was in conflict
with those forces in the area that were potential support-
ers of the Soviet Union. This view was reaffirmed by
Carter press secretary Jody Powell on November 7, 1979,
three days after the taking of fifty-three American hos-
tages in Iran.

Although Brzezinski is reliably reported to be almost
totally unfamiliar with political conditions in the Middle
East, he has had a steady preoccupation with the use of
religions and religious cults as a tool of political warfare.
Trained by the Jesuits at McGill University — he has
stated that he considers himself so close to the Jesuits in
his method of thinking that he is almost a honorary
member of the Society — and obsessed, because of his
background as a member of the reactionary aristocracy
of feudal Poland, with the liberation of Eastern Europe,
he has explored the potential for an uprising there led by
Jesuit networks. From this vantage point, it was not hard
for Brzezinski to leap to the conclusion that a chain of
Muslim Brotherhood governments in the Middle East
might serve the same purpose there.

Combined with the cultivation of the Jesuit networks
and various Eastern European exiles, and the develop-
ment of the grandiose "China card" in Asia, collabora-
tion with the Muslim Brotherhood would potentially

6

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

complete the encirclement of the ILS.S.R. with hostile,
ideologically committed armies.

Although the strategy, in Brzezinski' s view, had great
tactical advantages, it was not necessarily aimed at
bearing fruit until the passage of perhaps ten or twenty
years. During this time, the NSC chief calculated, the
gradual weakening of the Soviet Union as the result of
another arms race and persistent economic warfare
would lead to the eventual disintegration of the Soviet
Union itself! According to an official U.S. government
strategic survey published in 1979, the loyalties of Soviet
Muslim citizens to organizations based outside the
U.S.S.R. along its southern flank might he an important
aid in pulling apart the Soviet Union in the wake of a
general thermonuclear war.

Possessed by such doomsday fantasies, Brzezinski' s
National Security Council commissioned studies for its
Special Coordinating Committee on the possible effects
of an Islamic resurgence upon the Muslim populations
within the borders of the Soviet Union. Up to 50 million
Soviets, or one-quarter of the population of the U.S.S.R.,
are Muslim, and studies produced in London claimed
that the country's Muslim component is the fastest
growing part of its disparate demographic makeup.
According to the London Times, which reported these
surveys, many Soviet Muslims belong to a secret under-
ground network of Sufi mystical organizations and Mus-
lim brotherhoods. The claim has been refuted by more

sober analysts.

But in December 1979, as the revolutionary upsurge
against the Shah accelerated, the NSC's Special Coordi-
nating Committee secretly decided to vastly expand the

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

7

broadcasts of CIA radio stations in languages spoken in
Soviet Muslim areas. The following month, Carter ad-
ministration officials informed the Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee that Brzezinski had demanded a
"worldwide study" of Islamic fundamentalism because
of its "growing political impact ... in many parts of the
world," According to the Washington Post, Brzezinski
"formally directed the intelligence community to pro-
duce an in-depth study of this phenomenon."

Gradually, Brzezinskfs "Islamic card" came to dom-
inate the policy of the United States toward the entire
Middle East. At the height of the revolution against the
Shah, Brzezinski issued his famous proclamation that the
region was an "Arc of Crisis" stretching from North and
East Africa through the Middle East, Turkey, Iran, and
Pakistan. In this part of the world, Brzezinski charged,
the Soviet Union was making a power play for the oil
resources of the Gulf on which the industry of the West
was dependent. Although no one seriously believed that
Moscow was supporting Khomeini against the Shah —
indeed, most analysts thought that Moscow wanted the
Shah to remain in power — Brzezinski used the image of
the Soviet bear pressing down toward the Indian Ocean
to propose the creation of a "Middle East Treaty Organ-
ization," or METO.

The idea was not new. In July 1978, Edgar Bronfman,
the Zionist head of Seagram s, in an unusual Neto York
Times opinion column, had demanded its consideration
again, Bronfman disclosed that he had discussed the idea
with New York's Senator Jacob Javits and Vice-President
Walter Mondale, who then suggested to Brzezinski that
it be pursued by the administration. After the proposal

8

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

was approved as a working paper by the White House, it
led to the convening of the Camp David summit in
September 1978.

Egypt and Israel were expected to act as the initiating
countries for the expansion of NATO into the Middle
East. Iran was to be the next link

In its early stages, METO was to be a loosely
organized and informal protocol — resting chiefly on col-
laboration between national branches of the pan-Islamic
Muslim Brotherhood and Israeli intelligence, Brzezinski
regarded the Brotherhood as the common factor that
could link the disparate regimes in the "Arc of Crisis."

The culmination of Brzezinskf s Islamic strategy was
the covert American and open Chinese support for the
Afghanistan guerrillas operating out of Pakistan and
Iran. With the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran,
the fundamentalist guerrillas against the pro-Soviet Af-
ghanistan government were deluged with American aid,
as Brzezinskf s NSC was fed glowing reports of alleged
military victories by the Muslim Brotherhood rebels.
Now obsessed with visions of a stunning Islamic victory
against the Afghan regime of Prime Minister Amin,
Brzezinski and his Peking allies pressed on with the jihad
(holy war) in Afghanistan — despite the signs in late 1979
that the Soviet Union was preparing military interven-
tion.

When it finally came, the Soviet invasion of Afghan-
istan was a shock to Brzezinski and the NSC, but it
may also have been secretly welcomed; now Washington
had the opportunity to mobilize Iran and the rest of
the Muslim world against the U S S R., which was por-
trayed in official Washington statements as Islam's chief

enemy.

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

9

No matter that Brzezinskfs Muslim "allies" had
seized the American embassy, held its diplomats hostage,
and burned down American embassies in Pakistan and
Libya.

The secret of the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution does
not end with the strategic scenarios of "Rasputin"
Brzezinski. As the Islamic fundamentalist upsurge was
numbering the days of his regime, the Shah of Iran was
denouncing not the U.S. National Security Council, but
British Petroleum and the British Broadcasting Corpora-
tion as the foreign fomenters of rebellion. Brzezinski was
playing an "Islamic card" that had been placed in his

hand by the British.

By British we do not mean the government of the
United Kingdom — but the ruling families of the British
oligarchy, which since 1660 have ruled Britain, unchal-
lenged, as the command center for the European feudal
nobility and its associated financial interests. Policy for
the oligarchy is formulated and conduited through such
institutions as the Royal Institute of International Affairs,
the International Institute of Strategic Studies, and in
the United States through such prestigious organizations
as the New York Council on Foreign Relations and the
Aspen Institute, among others.

Since the era of Charlemagne, when humanity began
pulling itself out of the mud of the dark ages that
followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, the gravest
danger to Europe's noble families has been posed by the
nation-state with a leadership committed to the devel-
opment of its citizenry and its economy. As the American
Revolution proved, an educated population will not

10

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

tolerate the rule of the oligarchy and its regimen of

enforced backwardness.

The scions of Britain's oligarchical families think not
in terms of months and years, but in terms of decades
and even centuries. The establishment of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, for them, was to be the harbinger of a
coming era in which religious fundamentalism and an
antiscientific world view will prevail. Passed on from
generation to generation, the mind of the British aristo-
crat—like that of his Italian, Dutch, Hapsburg, and
other counterparts — is shaped by the belief in the su-
preme preferability of the days of the lordly manors and
feudal estates, when only the nobility, the clergy, and
the serfs existed in hierarchically defined relationships.

It is efficient here to quote Lord Bertrand Russell,
whose Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation did so much
to bring Khomeini to power, to give the reader a glimpse
of the kind of mind we are talking about. Writing in his
1951 Impact of Science on Society, Russell speaks of the
future:

"At present the population of the world is increasing
at about 58,000 per diem. War, so far, has had no very
great effect on this increase, which continued throughout
each of the world wars. . . . War . . . has hitherto been
disappointing in this respect . . . but perhaps bacteriolog-
ical war may prove more effective. If a Black Death
could spread throughout the world once in every gener-
ation, survivors could procreate freely without making
"the world too full. . . . The state of affairs might be
somewhat unpleasant, but what of it? Really high-
minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially
other people s. . . . The present urban and industrial cen-
ters will have become derelict, and their inhabitants, if

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

11

still alive, will have reverted to the peasant hardships of
their medieval ancestors/'

For the oligarchy, the Khomeini regime — which has
leveled the Iranian economy and turned its potential
citizens into rampaging mobs — is the "shape of things to
come/' The destruction of Iran's cities, the forced rever-
sion of Iran to an agricultural rather than an industrially
developing nation, the cancellation of Iran's nuclear
energy program by Khomeini have been praised by
representatives of Britain's ruling class not only as a
model for the underdeveloped sector but for the Western

industrial nations as well.

There is no tactic, no geopolitical strategy of the
British oligarchy, that, in the final analysis, is not
subordinated to that long-term goal.

But this project might remain simply the anachron-
istic dream of a class of men who had long outlived their
usefulness were it not for the fact that the British dark
ages policy has secured hegemony over most of the
policy-making apparatus of the United States. That
includes the United States government. It is the policy
that stands behind such slogans as "postindustrial soci-
ety/' "zero growth/' "environmentalism," and the "do
your own thing" amorality of the mind-destroying drug-
rock counterculture.

In 1975, the British dark ages policy was officially
incorporated into the future administration of Jimmy
Carter in the form of the Council on Foreign Relations*
1980s Project, a thirty-volume prospectus for the next
decade. Participants of the 1980s Project — Cyrus Vance,
v Anthony Solomon, Harold Brown, Zbigniew Brzezinski,
Leslie Gelb, among others — moved to Washington with
the Carter administration in 1977.

12

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

The general theme of the 1980s Project is "con-
trolled disintegration" of the world economy; the report
does not attempt to hide the famine, social chaos, and
death this policy will bring upon most of the world' s pop-
ulation.

Not made public until 1979, the 1980s Project papers
explained that the world financial and economic system
needed a complete overhaul, according to which control
of key sectors such as energy, credit allocation, and food
would be placed under the direction of a single, global
administration. Overseeing the apparatus suggested by
the Council would be a team of corporate managers
drawn from the ranks of the oil multinationals and
Anglo-American banks.

The objective of this reorganization would be the
replacement of the nation-state and the global supervi-
sion of the United Nations and the International Mone-
tary Fund. This would be accomplished first by dividing
the world into separate, regional currency zones, or
blocs. There would be a zone in which the bankrupt
British pound sterling would be dominant, another for
the French franc, another for the U.S. dollar, Japanese
yen, and Arab dinar, and so forth. Mediating between
each of these zones would be the International Monetary
Fund, which would retain nearly complete control over
flows of currency and world trade. The U.S. dollar would
no longer serve as the world' s central reserve currency.

The flow of advanced sector technology into the
underdeveloped nations would \>e halted.

The underdeveloped world would be permitted only
what the World Bank calls "appropriate technologies,"
that is, back-breaking labor-intensive "technology.'' The
International Monetary Fund alone would determine

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

13

whether a developing nation would be considered
"credit- worthy" enough for foreign financial assistance
and long-term loans.

Official IMF documents and World Bank studies
project that the effect of this program will be a sudden
and sharp reduction in population in the Third World.
The U.S. State Department-sponsored Global 2000 Re-
port, for example, projects — and approves — that this
policy will reduce by 3 billion the world's population in
the year 2000.

Iran is the test-tube experiment to prove that Third
World populations can be made to impose this policy
upon themselves.

It would also be a mistake to take at face value Zbigniew
Brzezinski's declarations that the primary target of the
Carter administration s alliance with Islamic fundamen-
talism is the Soviet Union. The primary target is the
economies of America' s allies in Western Europe. And
the primary weapon is oil.

In 1978, the governments of France and West Ger-
many led the European Community — with the single
exception of Great Britain — in the formation of the
European Monetary System, conceived, as one West
German official put it, as a "seed crystal for the replace-
ment of the International Monetary Fund." The EMS
and its "Phase Two" European Monetary Fund embod-
ied a program that challenged the "controlled disinte-
gration" scenario of the Carter administration at every
point, calling for the strengthening of the U.S. dollar, a
return to the gold standard, expansion of nuclear energy
production around the globe, and the revitalization of

14

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the industries of the advanced sector through an ambi-
tious high-technology export program to industrialize
the underdeveloped sector.

The success of the new monetary system hinges on
forging an alliance for development with the OPEC
nations. As early as 1977, France and West Germany had
begun exploring the possibility of concretizing a deal
with the oil-producing countries in which Western Eu-
rope would supply high-technology exports to the OPEC
countries in exchange for long-term oil supply contracts
at a stable price. In turn, the OPEC countries would
deposit their enormous financial surpluses in Western
European banks and, eventually, into the EMS's own
institutions, which would then relend them to other
countries in the Third world. With those credits, the
underdeveloped countries could begin to gain access to
European high-technology exports.

When London discovered that it could not dissuade
President Giscard d'Estaing and West German Chancel-
lor Helmut Schmidt from the EMS project in 1978 —
using ordinary deterrents— the green light was given to
the Muslim Brotherhood to speed the destabilization of
Iran.

The chief countries of Western Europe, along with
Japan, are almost totally dependent upon their oil supply
from the Persian Gulf, and during 1978 that supply came
from five states: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and
the United Arab Emirates. By bringing down the Shah
and spreading chaos throughout the Middle East, the
Anglo-Americans calculated they could knock out Eu-
rope with the threat or actuality of an oil cut-off.

In October 1979, less than a month before the taking
of American hostages in Teheran, Business Week made

the threat public:

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

15

"It may be that an Arab banking system funneling

petrodollars through the European Monetary System
will replace the current domination of the world's finan-
cial system by U.S. banks and the IMF. This depends, of
course, on OPEC's willingness to play the power-broker
part. If it refuses, there is another scenario that many
still think unthinkable: open warfare, in which either the
industrial West as a group, or the U.S. acting alone,
gives up trying to work with OPEC and instead invades

the oil fields/*

An invasion, of course, would not be calculated to

seize the oil supply for the United States — but to deny it
to Western Europe and Japan. The body blow to the
Western European economies would knock out the Eu-
ropean Monetary System. Since the taking of American
hostages, this threat has been held over the head of the
EMS like the sword of Damocles.

Brzezinski's "Islamic card" has functioned as the
most brutal end of the policy the Carter administration
brought into the White House. One of the first actions
Carter took when he assumed office in January 1977 was
to dispatch Vice-President Walter Mondale to France
and West Germany to tell the leaders of those two
nations that the United States would henceforth oppose
the sale of nuclear energy technology to the Third
World. West Germany's nuclear deal with Brazil and
France s promise to sell nuclear technology to Pakistan
came under heavy attack. In Iran, whose Shah had
pledged to bring Iran into the ranks of the world' s top
ten industrial nations by the year 2000, a comprehensive
nuclear development program, primarily backed by
France and West Germany, was already underway.

Today the Shah s nuclear cooling towers are used as
silos for grain, and "Iranization" has become a blackmail

16

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

threat against every Third World government seeking to

industrialize.

It is no idle threat. The capability for the Khomeini
revolution has been patiently set in place by the British
over a period of years — ready to come to the fore once
the decision to destroy Iran had been made.

Were we to select a date for the beginning of the *
Khomeini revolution, it would be November 1976. It
was in that month that Amnesty International, the
worldwide " human rights" organization issued its report
charging brutality and torture of political prisoners by
the Shah of Iran.

True, the groundwork for the Iranian revolution had
been laid several years earlier by the Colorado-based
Aspen Institute. And the project to destabilize the Shah's
regime was rooted in a century or more of Iranian
history, during which time British intelligence specialists
had cultivated the Iranian clergy, secret societies, and
/eligious brotherhoods as assets of the British Empire.
But the Amnesty International report was the gunshot
that started the war; one of Washington's staunchest
allies had been declared to be expendable.

During the late sixties and early seventies, under the
direction of first the State Department's Eugene Rostow
and then Henry Kissinger of the National Security
Council, the Shah had set his country on a course toward
militarization, equipped to be the protector of British
and Anglo-American interests in the Persian Gulf region,
London and Washington also intended to prevent Iran
from engaging in policies that in any way might threaten
the exclusive hegemony of the Anglo-American oil and

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

17

financial interests. During the 1950s and 1960s, for
instance, he had involved himself in petroleum deals
outside the framework of the Anglo-American oil cartel
headed by British Petroleum. The Shah had struck an
alliance with Italy's Enrico Mattei in the late 1950s, the
head of the state-owned ENI corporation, enraging
London; he had also made approaches to the Soviet
Union for economic agreements.

The Rostow- Kissinger policy had the full cooperation
of Israel's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad.

The team that drew up the plans for expanding
Anglo-American military presence in Iran included Rob-
ert W. Komer, presently the Undersecretary of Defense

for Policy under President Carter. At that time, Komer,
who had been a specialist in the Indian Ocean since the
Kennedy administration, was working on a joint task
force with the British government to plan Anglo-Ameri-
can strategy in the wake of British military withdrawal
from the Arabian Gulf countries between 1968 and 1971.
Today, Komer is the man behind the so-called Rapid
Deployment Force, the special 110,000-man strike force
whose primary mission is to seize areas in the Gulf.

Playing on a psychological profile of the Shah drawn
by the CIA and British intelligence, the Kissinger State

Department convinced the Shah that he had great need

for immense amounts of military hardware. With the

hardware came unlimited numbers of U.S. and British
intelligence personnel; scores of Iranian officers arrived

in the United States, Britain, and even Israel for training.

After 1973, however, with the sudden rise of oil
prices, the Shah began to see an opportunity for indepen-
dent action. The 1973-1974 oil hoax was the work of
Henry Kissinger. During the December 1973 OPEC

18

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

meeting in Teheran, the secretary of state had told the
Shah to demand an astronomical price increase. Kissin-
ger was acting on behalf of the Seven Sisters oil cartel
and the City of London banks, who desired high prices,
but the Shah saw the price increases as a way to begin to
pull his country out of backwardness. To the intense
irritation of his sponsors, the holder of the Peacock
Throne began talking about making Iran the "world's
sixth industrial power * in one generation.

The Shah's first open challenge to Kissinger came in
1975. With the mediation of President Houari Boume-
dienne of Algeria and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Iran
signed a pact with neighboring Iraq that ended a war of
attrition waged by the Kurdish minority of Iraq. The
Kurdish rebellion was a prized project of the CIA —
whose former director, Richard Helms, was ambassador
to Iran — the British Secret Intelligence Service, and the
Mossad. According to Arab sources, Ayatollah Khomeini
in 1975 was in exile in Iraq and supported the Kurdish
rebellion against his Iraqi hosts. When the Shah closed
the door on the Kurds, Kissinger hit the ceiling. Millions
of dollars in logistical support and arms went down the
drain in Kurdistan, as the Iraqi armed forces lost no time
in mopping up the remnants of the rebellion. Killing or
arresting the Kurdish feudal leaders who led the revolt,
the Iraqi government moved into Kurdistan with eco-
nomic development projects, and today Kurdistan is one
of the fastest growing parts of the developing sector. For
the British and the CIA, the Iran-Iraq pact was an

ungrateful slap in the face.

In 1977, things took a more serious turn. Gradually,
the Shah began to distance Iran from its close identifi-
cation with Israel and to loosen the bonds between Iran

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS' 19

and the Israeli secret services. Simultaneously, he steered
his country into a closer partnership with the Arabs,
especially Iraq and Saudi Arabia, cemented at OPEC
meetings in 1977 and 1978. Iran executed an astonishing
volte-face in OPEC, dropping its longstanding demand
for higher prices. In a press conference in 1977, the Shah
startled the world by stating his intention to work for oil
price stability. Together, Saudi Arabia and Iran pro-
duced nearly half of OPEC's entire output; were they to

agree on a policy perspective it would be rammed

through OPEC councils despite objections from the
radicals like Libya.

At the same time, the Shah — who for years had said
that he favored dropping the U.S. dollar in favor of a
"basket of currencies" — announced that henceforth Iran
would support the continued use of the dollar as a means
of payment and pricing for oil exports in OPEC.

For several years Kissinger and the British had been
trying to convince OPEC to switch to the International
Monetary Fund s Special Drawing Rights or a similar
unit of account Saudi Arabia had resisted that policy;
until now, Iran had supported it. Then, Saudi King
Khalid paid an unprecedented visit to Teheran, where
he arranged Saudi financial support for the Iranians.

The Shah's shift in policy reflected not only his desire
to strike a more independent course for his country. The
Shah was committing Iran to a strategy of closer collab-
oration with France and West Germany, on the eve of

the founding of the European Monetary System. If the

Iran-Iraq-Saudi axis had established a permanent work-
ing relationship with the EMS, it would have assembled
an unstoppable combination against London. Signs had
long been emerging of Iranian willingness to become

20

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

involved with West Germany and France economically.
Iran's huge, multibillion dollar nuclear development
program was primarily organized in cooperation with
Paris and Bonn. Washington had refused to sell ad-
vanced nuclear technology to Iran at all!

One deal in particular angered the Anglo-Americans:
the three-cornered deal by which Iran agreed to supply
the Soviet Union with huge quantities of natural gas,
while the U,S.S.R. supplied an equal quantity from its
own gas fields to West Germany. The Shah visited
Moscow' to discuss an expansion of Iran-Soviet economic
cooperation.

As far as Washington and London were concerned,
he was already a dead man.

The Iranian revolution was more a project in psycholog-
ical warfare than a matter of street-fighting, and it was
directed not from the mosques of rebelling mullahs but
from British Secret Intelligence Service headquarters at
the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations at Sussex
University.

Armed with computers and reams of files on previous
experiments in mass brainwashing in Iran, teams of
Tavistock social psychologists began to plan the specifics
,of the "revolution." How would Iranians respond to a
call from a decrepit old mullah to revolt? How would the
peasants respond? Skilled workers? The middle class?
Intellectuals? What techniques would best involve the
students in the rebellion? What were the vulnerabilities
of the police and armed forces? All this had to be
analyzed and taken into account.

The team that was put on the case were men who
were experienced in advanced psywar techniques for the

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

21

British Secret Intelligence Service going back to the days
of World War II and the Strategic Bombing Survey.
Experts such as Marvin Zonis, a professor at the Univer-
sity of Chicago who had written The Political Elite of
Iran, were drawn in to present profiles of how Iranian
classes and specific people would react.

The Shah was almost a perfect victim. According to
almost every Iranian who has had access to the inner
circles of the Shah's court, the Iranian elite was unrivaled
in corruption and venality. The Shah's own family was
notorious for not caring for the state as much as for the
opportunities it offered for shady business deals, smug-
gling, real estate speculation, and the glittering gold of
the international "jet set." Most of the royal family and
their friends in Iran were more at home in Acapulco, the
French Riviera, or Switzerland than in offices in Teh-
eran. Instead of collecting around him a team of political,
economic, and military advisers, the Shah was more
wont to surround himself with a clique of fawning
sycophants whose only wish was to flatter or praise him
in the hopes of securing some greater position of wealth
or power,

The Shah refused time and time again to purge his
courtiers. His own sense of inadequacy and inferiority,
which stemmed from the bitter memories of the British
dumping of his father, Reza Shah, in 1941, and his own
puppet-like crowning, had led him to overcompensate
with an imperial ego and haughty manner. He was
unable either to tolerate the rise of potential political
rivals or to crack the whip on his immediate circle. It was
not unusual for the Shah to clash with advisers and
military commanders who would be urging him to take
steps necessary to strengthen Iran, and then for these
advisers to be removed summarily from their posts. More

22

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

often than not, the way to get ahead in Iran was to flatter
the Shah.

For this reason, many of Iran's most dynamic leaders,
particularly those who could see the catastrophe coming,
had lost their positions in the five or ten years before the
start of the Khomeini revolution. Left were the yes-
men^and the traitors.

The 1976 Amnesty International report put an al-
ready vulnerable Shah on the defensive.

It is fairly common knowledge that Amnesty Inter-
national is a front for British intelligence. At the top are
those who know it for certain: Ramsey Clark, Sean
McBride, and Conor Cruise O'Brien. An Amnesty ad-
viser, Princeton s Richard Falk, wrote the section of the
1980s Project devoted to human rights.

Amnesty's 1976 report alleged that the Shah s secret
police had tortured and killed political dissidents; its
purpose was to foster a climate across the globe in which
the Iranian regime was viewed as barbaric and inhuman.
Gruesome accounts of electric shock torture and mutila-
tion were played up by the London Times, the Washing-
ton Post, and other respected press. Defending Iranian
political prisoners quickly became a cause ctildbre among
radicals and leftists.

The Shah was forced into a position of defending an
organization that had no defense. Since its founding in
1955, the secret Savak had been put under the control of
British and Israeli intelligence. It tended to act autono-
mously of the Shah s government; indeed, at times the
Savak was in control of the Shah and not the other way
around. Most of the agency's torturers had been trained
by Israel s Mossad. Its power was increased by occasional
acts of terrorism by the left that enabled it to take

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

23

ruthless repressive action. Many thoughtful Iranians now
suspect that the Savak used agent provocateurs to
strengthen its hand with the Shah.

Amnesty International soon found that it had power-
ful friends. With only a few months in office, President
Jimmy Carter launched his own "human rights" cam-
paign. Although nominally aimed at violations of human
rights by communist countries— excluding the People's
Republic of China — the campaign was more often used
to keep allies — like Iran — in line. U.S. intelligence offi-
cials warned that to apply human rights criterion to the
situation, say, of Iran would lead to disaster and would
grossly upset legitimate U.S. interests in the Persian
Gulf. Such warnings did not deter Zbigniew Brzezinski
or Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The Human Rights
Division at State under Patricia Derian soon became one
of the most active departments at Foggy Bottom.

Vance's old friend, Deputy Secretary of State Warren
Christopher, directed the operation. Christopher had
earlier served under the Johnson administration as the
No. 2 man at Ramsey Clark's Department of Justice.

After Amnesty's declaration of war, scores of radical
and leftist organizations sprang into action against the
Shah. CBS-TV's weekly 60 Minutes produced a broad-
cast to prove that agents of the Shah's secret police had
plotted to kill several Iranian opposition figures, includ-
ing the man who is now Iran's foreign minister, Sadegh
Ghotbzadeh, and a publisher of anti-Shah literature in
Virginia. Into full mobilization went the Bertrand Russell
Peace Foundation, the Lelio Basso Foundation in Italy,
the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, the
Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, the Socialist In-
ternational machine in Europe, the American Friends

24

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Service Committee, the Libyan-backed Mediterranean
People's Congress, and the many human rights organi-
zations such as the International Association of Demo-
cratic Jurists. Through these organizations, the radical
professors and others shuttled back and forth to Teheran
from various Western capitals to make contact with the
opposition.

In Iran, there was only one organization of any
importance to link up to: the Muslim Brotherhood.

Gathered into the Fedayeen-e Islam were the mul-
lahs led by Ayatollah Khalkhali and Ayatollah Khomeini,
who represented the organizing core behind the revolu-
tion. Throughout the country, some 200,000 mullahs,
positioned in every town and village, followed the dic-
tates of a few fanatics at the head of the Brotherhood.
Several dozen of these mullahs and the ayatollahs com-
manded huge followings.

The other arm of Khomeini's revolution was the
coterie of experience, Western-trained, intelligence
agents who clustered around the clergy. These are

today' s surviving secular office-holders: Sadegh Ghotb-

zadeh, Ibrahim Yazdi, and Abolhassan Bani-Sadr.

Direction from Washington and London came via
the " professors/' men such as Professor Richard Cottam
of the University of Pittsburgh.

Cottam had met Yazdi in Iran as early as the 1950s,
when Cottam was a field officer for the CIA attached to
the U.S. embassy in Teheran. Cottam also met and
guided another member of the future leadership of the
Iranian revolution, Ghotbzadeh. For the next twenty
years, the Pittsburgh professor joined Yazdi and

Ghotbzadeh for strategy sessions in the United States,
Europe, and Iran. Yazdi and Cottam were so close that

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

25

Yazdi' s wife once described Cottam as "a very close
friend of my husband, the one person who knows more
about him than even I do."

In 1970, Cottam visited Iran again, "Ghotbzadeh set
up a lot of contacts for me while I was there," Cottam

w

reminisces. "But he did a sloppy job. I almost blew some
covers/' In 1977, he made contact with Mohammed
Darakhshesh, a radical Iranian who had been a leader
many years earlier of the revolt against the Shah's 1963
White Revolution.

In 1977, Darakhshesh traveled to Washington
through France. Making contact with the opposition to
the Shah, Darakhshesh met in the United States with
Cottam, and he asked the Pittsburgh professor to in-
tercede on his behalf with the new Carter administration.
Cottam went to Washington and there discussed
supporting Khomeini with the U.S. National Security
Council.

At about the same time, Yazdi and Ghotbzadeh,
looking for funds, were both shuttling back and forth
between the United States and France, with visits to Iraq
where Khomeini was living in exile. The first money
came from the Libyan government of Muammar Qad-
dafi. A great deal of work needed to be done. Scattered
around the world were scores of disorganized centers of
Iranian student and other opposition groups. Nearly the
entire leadership of Iran under Khomeini would be
drawn from these groups, to the exclusion of the Iranians
who stayed inside the country to fight the revolution.

Yazdi was the paradigm of such "revolutionaries."
He had been constantly at Khomeini's side during the
ayatollah' s stay outside Paris at Neauphle-le-Chiteau,
along with Ghotbzadeh and Bani-Sadr — the inner circle

26

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

of Khomeini's "Paris advisers." After February 1979,
Yazdi was named "deputy prime minister for revolution-
ary affairs," from which post he helped set up Kho-
meini's secret police, the Savama. Later, he became
foreign minister, resigning in November 1979, after the
takeover of the U.S. embassy, only to return to a behind-
the-scenes job with Khomeini's inner clique.

Yazdi's first trip to the United States was in 1959. He
received a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and then joined the faculty of Fairleigh
Dickinson University. Although he had been implicated
in a case involving rape charges and other sex crimes,
Yazdi easily obtained status as an American permanent
resident— and, eventually, citizenship of the United
States — through the aid of New Jersey Senator Harrison
Williams.

In 1963, Yazdi worked to found the Muslim Brother-
hood's American branch, the "Muslim Student Associa-
tion/' By now a political operative, Yazdi also set up the
Iranian Students Association and later the Young Mus-
lims Organization.

In 1964, he left the United States for Europe, spend-
ing about three years in France, West Germany, and the
American University of Beirut, a bastion of Anglo-Amer-
ican intelligence in the Middle East.

During his three years in Paris, Yazdi worked with
Ghotbzadeh and a loose grouping of French anglophiles,
existentialists, environmentalists, and anthropologists
now lined up behind the Khomeini movement.

Returning to the United States in 1967, he moved to
Houston, Texas, taking up a research and training post
at Baylor Medical College. "I doubt he did much
teaching," commented Georgetown University's Thomas

REVOLUTION BY 'OUR FRIENDS'

27

Ricks, the national coordinator of the People's Commit-
tee on Iran. "Every six weeks or so he was always coming
to Washington, meeting with all kinds of people, build-
ing up his Young Muslims Organizations and so forth.
He was always very careful, very discreet, about his
meetings."

But during his years away from Iran by far the most
important person Yazdi came into contact with was
Professor Ali Shariati, the fanatic Iranian ideologue
whose notions of "Islamic socialism" supplied the syn-
thetic basis for the Khomeini movements, especially
among Iranian students. Shariati was not working alone;
he was funded by the Bertrand Russell Peace Founda-
tion. From his position at the University of Mashad he
gathered around him a following of zealous revolution-
aries among Iranian secondary school and college stu-
dents. In Paris together in 1964, Yazdi and Shariati
discussed returning to Iran together. It was decided that
Shariati would go first, to be followed by Yazdi. The
guru was captured and arrested on the border entering
Iran, and instructed Yazdi not to come.

It took nearly fifteen years for Yazdi to get back to
Iran — at the head of the entourage of the Ayatollah
Khomeini.

V

How the British
Brought Down
The Shah

It is August 1978. Trouble had been brewing in Iran
for almost a year, with visible revolts beginning in

January 1978 after President Carter's New Year s praise

of Iran as an " island of stability/'

The situation had started deteriorating a year earlier
when the Shah had changed prime ministers, replacing
Prime Minister Abbas Amir Hoveyda with Jamshid
Amouzegar. The chief impact of the Amouzegar appoint-
ment was to decelerate Iran's development push, orient-
ing investment toward agriculture and away from indus-
try and high-technology sectors.

Amouzegar had also adopted a curious position vis-ik-
vis the clergy, carrying out actions that superficially
seemed to be aimed against the mullahs, but that seemed

only to exacerbate the campaign against the government.
Amouzegar had unilaterally suspended payments the

28

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH 29

regime had been making to the clergy, causing the first
signs of unrest in the mosques. Ill-timed provocations —
including insulting letters against the clergy published
in the Iranian press by information ministry officials and,
in May 1978, a police raid on the home of Iran's leading
clergyman, Ayatollah Shareatmadari — fueled the discon-
tent.

The Shah seemed almost oblivious to the simmering
volcano beneath him, and he continued to place his trust
entirely in the Savak and the security services.

That was his biggest mistake.

The man in charge of Savak' s day-to-day affairs was
General Hossein Fardoust, a childhood friend of the
Shah who had attended the Le Rosey school in Switzer-
land with him in the 1930s. According to information
now available, Fardoust was likely the ringleader of the
"inside" track of the revolution; for at least a full year
before February 1979 he was carefully exploring for
allies among the commanders of the armed forces and
the intelligence services. Fardoust would sound out
whether a particular officer, perhaps with longstanding
grudges against the Shah, would agree to join the Islamic
revolution. "The Americans have decided to get rid of
the Shah," Fardoust would say. "We have to save
ourselves. Will you join us?" Many did.

Both the Shah and his sister Princess Ashraf have said
that they consider General Fardoust to have been a
traitor to the regime. In her book, Faces in a Mirror,
Ashraf says that, after the suspension of subsidies to the
clergy, the mosques became the scene of often violent
anti-Shah demonstrations.

But, she says, "Curiously, Savak, the Shah's secret
police — the supposedly all-seeing, all-knowing intelli-

30

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

gence source — made no reports on the extent and man-
ner in which the mullahs were now using the sanctity of
the pulpit to undermine the throne. . . . Fardoust func-
tioned as a kind of conduit for vital information on the
highest level, which he delivered to my brother, ... I
am convinced Fardoust must have withheld vital infor-
mation from the Shah and was, in fact, in active negoti-
ations with Khomeini during the last years of the re-
gime."

Today, Fardoust is rumored to be one of the leaders
of Khomeini's Savama; his home was linked to the
December 1979 murder of Prince Shafiq in Paris. Con-
cerning that charge, the Shah told an interviewer after
the murder, "In my inner heart I hope it's not true.
Because it would be so . . . I mean, dirty, so vile, so
disgusting." But in the months leading to February
1979, Fardoust enjoyed the monarch's wholehearted
trust

In early August 1978, Iran was ripped by the worst
act of terrorism in history. After a week of scattered
violence, over 400 people died on August 19 when a fire
raged through the Rex Cinema in Abadan. The fire, it
was clear, had been set deliberately, and the doors to the
theater barricaded from the outside to. prevent any
escape from the inferno. Amid mounting tension in Iran
and charges of Savak involvement in setting the fire, the
official Pars News Service began its own campaign.

"There are two forces responsible for manipulating
the current outbreaks — a mass of common naive people
who have been subjected to systematic brainwashing are
being manipulated by both religious fanaticism and the
landed classes/' said Pars on August 18. The rioters and
terrorists "are encouraged by certain foreign elements

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH

31

which are hostile to the development of Iran," the news
service charged.

For several weeks already, the Iranian press had been
growing increasingly hostile to the British, and in street
discussions most Iranians admitted that the movement
led by Khomeini and the mullahs was organized by
London.

Special attacks were reserved for the British Broad-
casting Corporation (BBC), whose Persian -language
broadcasts into Iran fanned the flames of revolt. In late
July, the Iranian Workers Organization issued what
amounted to an officially sanctioned attack on the BBC:
' The BBC has been insulting and criticizing the Iranian
nation in its Persian broadcasting services. . . . Iranian
development and progress is like a thorn in the eyes of
the British imperialists/'

So widespread were attacks on the British in Iran that
the press in London was compelled to take notice of it.
In the August 21 London Times former British intelli-
gence officer Lord Chalfont noted with characteristic
British understatement: "There are, in Teheran, so many
explanations for the current unrest. One school of
thought advances the curious proposition of a British
conspiracy; however, it turns out, on closer investigation,
that no one can provide any evidence or even logical
justification for this bizarre theory." Lord Chalfont
added that the "Iranian government has traced some of
the money back to numbered bank accounts in Switzer-
land. Here, predictably, the trail goes cold."

The Shiite clergy-led rebellion was also fed by the
daily influx of hundreds of thousands of desperate,
displaced peasants into Iran's major cities. The migration
from the countryside was the fruit of the economic

32

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

policies of the Amouzegar government, which, by halt-
ing many construction and development projects, cre-
ated instant unemployment among the country's semi-
skilled and unskilled labor force. Arriving in the cities,
these peasants were shunted right into the mob violence
that was gaining new strength with every new action.

The rabble-rousers of the revolution were the mullahs
in the mosques. Inviolate to police and law-enforcement
authorities, the mosques became rallying points.
Speeches by the leading ayatollahs, repeated in hundreds
of other speeches throughout the country, whipped up
the semiliterate people of Iran to a frenzy, at the end of
which they would swarm out onto the streets, chanting
and singing praises of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini.

It was not a political revolution, but a process of cult
building, of conditioning the fearful and desperate emo-
tions of Iran's backward peasants into a political batter-
ing ram of self-destruction. It was the mass suicide of the
Reverend Jim Jones's People's Temple on a national
scale. When a group of fanatic marchers, often drugged
with opium and told by the mullahs that by dying they
would be saved (martyrdom is a centuries-old tradition
in Shiism), charged into the gun barrels of poorly trained
police, their deaths only triggered further marches.
Then, as is the custom among Shiites, on the fortieth day
after any death, new ceremonial marches were staged in
memory of the dead. The result was new casualties. This
forty-day cycle, which began in the spring of 1978, was
to repeat itself with quickening intensity throughout the
year.

Finally, in the first week of September 1978, after
several days of demonstrations bringing millions of Ira-
nians into the street, the Shah acceded to pressure from

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH 33

his generals and declared martial law. That martial law
had not been declared many months earlier can be
ascribed to one factor only: the clamorous pressure of
Amnesty International s "human rights" campaign. Not
that the Shah was worried about only Amnesty and its
allies; the American and British ambassadors in Teheran
quietly had been warning that if the Shah declared
martial law, his standing in world opinion would plum-
met sharply. By hesitating so long in taking a tough
stand against the lunatics of the Shiite clergy, the Shah
had given them enough rope to begin the cycle of
demonstrations and death marches. Now by declaring
martial law, he was not only confronting his own coun-
trymen but the U.S. administration and the British. The
showdown had begun.

On Friday, September 8, the Shah named General
Gholam Ali Oveissi as administrator of martial law.

Formerly the commander of the Imperial Guard, the

Shah's elite force, Oveissi had a reputation as a hawk.
For some reason, the declaration of martial law, though
broadcast on the radio, was not heard by many people.
Later that day a clash developed between police and
demonstrators who had not been told by their leaders
that martial law had banned all manifestations. Up to

500 demonstrators were killed in what became known as

"Black Friday/'

The Shah had thrown down the gauntlet: there was
no turning back now. Although he would still seek
compromise, compromise was no longer an option, and
his hesitation would cost him dearly.

The day after the massacre, the word was out that
the White House had decided to get rid of the Shah.
French columnist Paul Marie de la Gorce reported: "It

34

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

was clear, over the last several days, that the calculations
of the Shah aiming to reconcile the moderate elements
of the Shiite clergy was in the process of failure. From all
evidence, the Shah could not wait any longer to impose
martial law. He knew very well that his removal was
already being openly discussed, including among his
longtime allies — the Americans. . . . There were other
solutions being prepared in other Washington circles/'

From outside Iran, two institutions in particular aided
the on-the-ground war against the Shah: British Petro-
leum and the British Broadcasting Corporation,

It has gone unnoticed that during the entire year of
1978, negotiations were proceeding between the govern-
ment of Iran and the oil consortium represented by
British Petroleum. Talks on renewing the 25-year con-
tract that began in 1953 after the Anglo-American
intelligence coup d'etat that restored the Shah to the
throne, had started in" January 1978, and continued
through the rest of the year. By October, they collapsed.

Iranians on the inside of the negotiations say that the
British were blackmailing Iran during the years preced-
ing the contract's end by refusing to honor an agreement
to buy most of Iran's oil production. Although BP and its
allies had the authority to purchase up to 8 million
barrels of oil per day from Iran by 1978, and had agreed
to a minimum of 5 million, they were contracting for
only 3 to 4 million. This forced Iran to adjust its income
expectations and try to market the oil independently,
which they had been doing successfully.

Now, in October 1978, at the height of the revolu-
tion, the Shah and the National Iranian Oil Company
(NIOC) were negotiating the economic future of Iran.

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH

35

BP rejected NIOC's demands out of hand, refusing to
promise to buy Iranian oil but demanding the exclusive
right to buy that oil should it wish to in the future! The
Shah and NIOC flatly rejected BP's final offer, and it
appeared that if the Shah overcame the revolt, then Iran
would be totally free in its oil sales policy in 1979, able
to market its own oil to the state companies of France,
Spain, Brazil, and many other countries on a state-to-
state basis.

"If the consortium [BP] is not willing to show more
flexibility in its dealings, perhaps it is time for Iran to
reconsider its overall relationship with the companies,"
declared an editorial in Iran's Kayhan International in
September. In retrospect, the 25-year partnership with
the consortium and the 50-year relationship with British
Petroleum which preceded it have not been satisfactory
ones for Iran. . . . Looking to the future, NIOC should

plan to handle all operations by itself. . . , While this
would shift investment obligations wholly onto the
NIOC it would simultaneously have the attraction of
placing the profitable marketing of all the country's oil

products into the hands of the state-owned company.
The question on the minds of the oil industry executives
here is: has the time for change finally come?"

Almost simultaneously, the first signs of worker un-
rest began in the Iranian oil fields. Iranian oil output
was slowed, several times during 1978, to a trickle. In
the middle of the Iran-BP negotiations, Iran's chief
asset — its enormous oil wealth — was suddenly elimi-
nated as a chip for bargaining.

Iran's oil workers, according to reports, were organ-
ized primarily by a team of radicals sent into Khuzestan
by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.

In the American press, not a single line was published

36

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

about the Iranian fight with BP during the entire
revolutionary period.

Simultaneously, capital began leaving the country —
a flight organized through BP channels among Iran's
financial elite. This elite, represented primarily in certain
Bahai cult, Jewish, and other bankers and merchants,
had family connections to the British merchants and BP
dating back to the nineteenth century.

On the lower levels, this alliance rested on the

historic agreements between the Shiite leadership and
the underworld of the bazaar merchants. Dependent on
financing at high rates of interest, the bazaaris had struck
political and economic deals of convenience with the
merchant banks.

The bazaaris were traditionally connected to the
unregulated monetary flows and smuggling within the
Arab littoral states in the Persian Gulf. Exerting tremen-
dous power over this uncontrolled financial nexus are a
number of prominent and financially powerful Jewish

families. Known as the **Jewish rug merchants," these

financial concerns have the ability to exert an impact on

Iran's economy through massive capital flight amounting
to tens of millions of dollars within hours. The New York
Post reported in October 1978 that in that month alone
over $700 million left Iran through channels controlled
by the Iranian Jewish community.

None of this could have occurred without a green
light from the British, whose intelligence service watches
the goings-on in the Persian Gulf markets with extreme
care. For two centuries the British have controlled the
smuggling and drug trade in the Gulf as a way station
between Asia's Far East Golden Triangle and the West.
Through these channels, vast amounts of arms and

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH

37

ammunition were smuggled into Iran to feed the rebel-
lion — and money was smuggled out.

It was in this period, between late September and
the beginning of November, that the Shah missed his
lkst real opportunity to stem the tide.

By October, the Iranian nation was well aware that
the British-sponsored clergy was determined to bring
down the regime. It was the talk of Teheran. Had the
Shah taken the decision to confront the British openly
and directly, he could have defeated them. That strategy
would have centered around the Shah's launching his
own revolution, by declaring that the security of Iran
was threatened by a British imperialist conspiracy and
by British Petroleum. He would have been able to paint
the clergy as "black reactionaries*' in the service of
London, and rallied most of Iran's political elite to his
side. As it was, his poor political administration had
propelled many of the middle class and intellectuals to
the side of the fanatic Khomeini in the hope of latching
their fortunes onto the mullahs' revolution.

In the international domain, conditions were ripe for
the Shah to pull a political coup against the British: If he
had suddenly decided to nationalize BP and the rest of
the consortium and market all of Iranian oil indepen-
dently, breaking the expiring agreement, there were
signs that France, West Germany, and Japan would have
ignored any British calls for a boycott (as happened in
1951, under Mossadegh) and reached state-to-state deals
with Iran.

The Soviet Union and its allies were also prepared to
support the Shah against Khomeini. In late October, the
Shah had received birthday telegrams from Leonid I.
Brezhnev of the Soviet Union and many Eastern Euro-

38

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

pean leaders. Brezhnev's message had called for an
expansion of relations between the Soviet Union and its
neighbor, economically and politically. In 1978, a Tass
release from Moscow urgently denied reports from An-
glo-American sources that Moscow was behind the un-
rest in Iran and declared, "In order to uncover the
reasons for the present disturbances in Iran, the CIA
Director would have to look particularly at the policy of
his own country/' Tass called charges by CIA Director
Stansfield Turner about a Soviet role in fomenting unrest
in Iran a " propagandistic coverup for the American
secret services in Teheran."

Neighboring Iraq, which had watched Khomeini s
opposition to the Shah carefully, took action on Septem-

j

ber 27. The ayatollah was placed under arrest in Najaf,
the Iraqi holy city. Not only Iraq, but many Arab states
were prepared to support the Shah against the clergy,
whose revolution, they feared, would later spread into
the Arab world.

But the Shah did not act.

Without the British Broadcasting Corporation, there
would have been no Khomeini. During the entire year of
1978, the BBC stationed dozens of correspondents
throughout the country, in every remote town and
village. BBC correspondents, often part-time stringers
for Khomeini, sometimes full-time British nationals in
the employ of the British secret service, worked as the
intelligence service for the revolution.

As soon as a small incident occurred in some village,
the BBC correspondent on the scene would relay the
news to BBC headquarters in Teheran. Within hours,

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH

39

BBC Persian-language broadcasts would beam exagger-
ated accounts of the incident to all Iran! Functioning as
the national loudspeaker for the mullahs and their
sympathizers, each day the BBC would beam into Iran
gory accounts of alleged atrocities committed by the
Iranian police — often without checking the veracity of
the report. The Iranian government was never givea a
chance to rebut. Propagandists like Ibrahim Yazdi were
given hours of air time to vent their spleen against the
Shah, all of which was eagerly listened to by the Shah's
enemies in Iran.

By late fall, the BBC was broadcasting the long,
ranting speeches of the lunatic Ayatollah Khomeini
himself — in their entirety. Several times during Novem-
ber and December, the Shah said he would take reprisal
against London if the BBC's subversion were not halted.
Once he threatened to break diplomatic relations with
Great Britain. But the British government solemnly
swore it had no influence over the BBC which, they
claimed, was a "private corporation." At least twice the
Shah summoned the British ambassador in Teheran to
protest the actions of the BBC, but to no avail. From
time to time, the government would expel a BBC
correspondent, but no more.

Not until November 30, 1978, did a member of the
Iranian Parliament, Hossein Daneshi from Abadan, de-
mand to know why the BBC had been permitted to play
its provocateur role: "A glance at the events and devel-
opments throughout the world over the past year dem-
onstrates a diabolical plan aimed at the disintegration of
Iran. . . . You should not be surprised if you see that the
BBC prepares programs and during its three programs in
Persian thinks of nothing but to make provocations,

40

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

create disturbances, and chaos. This old fox Britain, no
longer able to secure good for itself, is looking for a prey.

"My question for the government is this," declared
Daneshi. "Why does it not clarify political facts and why
does it not inform the people about political develop-
ments in the world which have been launched against
Iran? Why does the government not unveil Britain's
design as it is still tasting the fruits of its plunderings?"

Why indeed? With the gathering storm, the BBC
became the de facto coordinator for revolution. On less
than twenty-four hours notice, Teheran's mullahs could
organize simultaneous demonstrations in Iranian cities
separated by a thousand miles — through the BBC. In
Paris, Khomeini made tapes ordering his cult followers
to rampage through the streets. Within hours, his precise
instructions, in his own voice in Persian, would be
broadcast into Iran from BBC's London headquarters.

Belying its origins as an arm of the British Special
Operations Executive, the BBC began to broadcast psy-
war rumors in December, such as reports claiming that
the Shah had fled the country, or had abdicated the
throne to his son, or had gone insane. In December the
Iranian Information Minister Tehrani accused the BBC
of inciting the Iranian oil workers to strike. A BBC
United Press International correspondent was expelled
for reporting that the Shah had been assassinated. For a
brief time that month, as the Washington Post reported
that the BBC was considered to be Iran's "Public Enemy
No. 1," the military government of Prime Minister
General Gholam Reza Azhari jammed the BBC broad-
casts. It was too late.

The Shah's enemies in the clergy were not averse to
a little psychological warfare of their own. Once, during

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH

41

a scheduled demonstration in Teheran on December 2,
1978, when the violence that antigovernment fanatics
hoped for did not materialize, the Shiite clergy brought
professionally made tape recordings of screams, gun-
shots, and violence and played them over loudspeakers
from the minarets of the mosques! Within hours, BBC
correspondents in "on the scene" newscasts had their
accounts of the December 2 demonstrations beaming
into Iran, complete with background noise courtesy of
the mullahs* electronic equipment. The next day, people
emerging from their homes found red stains on the
pavement where the march had taken place; the mullahs

had poured red-colored dye on the streets to simulate
blood.

Tactics like this, everyone knew, so highly effective
with Iran's population, were not devised by illiterate
mullahs.

By this time, in Washington, the final go-ahead had
been given to replace the Shah with the ayatollah. In
November, the Carter administration announced that it
had appointed George Ball of the Trilateral Commission
and the Bilderberg Society to head a special NSC task
force on Iran and the Persian Gulf. Ball, who had long
been known as an anti-Shah advocate of the human-
rights mafia's views, delivered the obituary-in-advance
for the Pahlavi regime, recommending that the United
States drop its support of the Shah and make contacts
with the opposition.

In early January 1979, at a meeting of the heads of

state of the United States, Great Britain, France, and
West Germany in Guadeloupe, the U.S. administration
formally announced to its allies that it would no longer
work to keep the Shah in power. With the " Islamic card"

42

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

now on the table, it was only a matter of time before the

Shah was ousted.

Reflecting on the process of events that destroyed his
regime, the Shah of Iran wrote later in his memoirs,
Answer to History: "I did not know it then — perhaps I
did not want to know—but it is clear to me now that the
Americans wanted me out. Certainly this is what the
human rights advocates in the State Department wanted,
and Secretary Vance apparently acceded. I say appar-
ently because I was never told anything: nothing about
the split in the Carter administration over Iran policy;
nothing about the hopes some American officials put in
the viability of an 'Islamic Republic' as a bulwark against

communist incursions.

"What was I to make, for example, of the administra-
tion's sudden decision to call former Under Secretary of
State George Ball to the White House as an adviser on
Iran? I knew that Ball was no friend and I understood
that he was working on a special report concerning Iran.
No one ever informed me what areas the report was to
cover, let alone its conclusions. I read them months later
in exile and found my worst fears confirmed. Ball was
among those Americans who wanted to abandon me and
ultimately my country.'*

At this point, France's role became crucial. The
French and the West Germans were well aware that a
Khomeini regime would seriously destabilize the Persian
Gulf and threaten their oil supply. They also knew that,
using Khomeini as an excuse, the U.S. military would
begin pressing for an expanded presence in the Indian
Ocean area t which could upset the balance of world
strategic forces and, in the opinion of Paris and Bonn,
lead to World War III. Khomeini, in the French view,

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH

43

was a highly unstable card to play, one that could trigger
the disintegration of the entire Middle East.

France had already made one blunder that President
Giscard d'Estaing must have regretted. When Iraq
placed the mad ayatollah under arrest in Najaf, the
French inexplicably granted Khomeini asylum in France.
Reportedly, the French decision was taken under the
advice of the Shah, who told Giscard that Paris might
better be able to control Khomeini's actions if he were
located nearby rather than in some Arab country like
Libya. For whatever reason, partly self-serving, the
French government allowed Khomeini to arrive, and he
took up residence at Neauphle-le-Ch&teau near Paris.

The ayatollah became an overnight world celebrity —
this was in October 1978— and gave daily interviews to
the international press. The French had not calculated
on the effect of the electronic media.

A steady stream of American and British agents filed
through Khomeini's chateau to make the final arrange-
ments for the transfer of power to the ayatollah. Among
Khomeini s guests were Ramsey Clark, the former U.S.
attorney general; Joseph Malone, an ex-CIA station chief
in Beirut with close ties to British intelligence; Zygmunt
Nagorski, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
in New York; and many more.

The Anglo-American scenario for disintegrating the
Middle East looked unstoppable. But the French and
their allies sought the last chance. On January 6, the
Shah had named Shahpour Bakhtiar, a respected mem-
ber of the National Front, as prime minister.

The Bakhtiar government was the last hope of avert-
ing chaos in Iran. Dr. Bakhtiar himself had close ties to
France and was held in high esteem among Iranian

44

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

nationalists. He had been jailed under the Shah for his
role among the democratic opposition, but he had no
connections to a reactionary clergy. During World War
II, he fought in the Free French armed forces against
the Nazis, and his son is today a serving member of the
French intelligence service. It was now Bakhtiar's re-
sponsibility to organize a national consensus around
sanity to prevent power from slipping into the hands of
the Dark Ages mullahs. No one could consider him a
puppet of the Shah; if he could pull together a govern-
ment, then perhaps Khomeini could be stopped.

The French, and their continental West European

allies, were willing to help.

"When, in 1940, Charles de Gaulle climbed into his
modest plane to go to London, he was not convinced of
success either/' declared Bakhtiar in an interview just

after he formed his cabinet.

Some two weeks earlier, Bakhtiar had joined forces
with Darious Farouhar, another member of the National
Front, the main nonclergy opposition group that had
been founded by Mohammed Mossadegh in the 1940s.
Farouhar was called upon to back the effort of Prime
Minister Siddighi to form a cabinet in late January. That
effort failed, and so Bakhtiar took the mantle. On
January 3, in the United States, Lyndon LaRouche urged
the world's governments to throw all of their support
behind Bakhtiar s effort to form a constitutional govern-
ment.

In the five weeks that Bakhtiar served as prime
minister, he displayed enormous courage and resolve to
prevent Iran from falling into the Khomeini abyss. For
his efforts, he was "expelled" from the National Front
by its chairman, Karim Sanjabi, an opportunistic fool

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH

45

who decided early on that Bakhtiar could not succeed
and instead traveled to Paris where he signed a pact with
Khomeini. (For his reward, Sanjabi later served briefly
as Khomeini's first foreign minister, until he was forced
out of office and replaced by Yazdi ) Bakhtiar laughed at
Sanjabi's mistakes, urging him to come back into the
fold and break with Khomeini. "If Karim Sanjabi, who
has just excluded me in a somewhat ridiculous fashion
from the National Front, accepts the post as president of
the regency council, the place awaits him/' But Sanjabi
would not accept.

Bakhtiar also sought an agreement with the Shah
concerning control of the armed forces. Reluctant to give
Bakhtiar full military control, the Shah demanded to
retain the figurehead title of commander-in-chief. To
strengthen his position with the armed forces, Bakhtiar
asked General Feredoun Djam, a former chief of staff
who had had a falling out with the Shah years earlier, to
return to Iran as his defense minister. Djam was highly
respected by the armed forces, and would help Bakhtiar
rally their support.

As soon as his government was ratified by the parlia-
ment, Bakhtiar began pushing through a series of major
reform acts. Among them, he completely nationalized all
British oil interests and concessions in Iran; put an end
to martial law; abolished the secret police, Savak; pulled
Iran out of the Central Treaty Organization and declared
that Iran would no longer be "the gendarme of the
Gulf/' He also announced that he was removing Ardeshir
Zahedi from his position as Iran's ambassador to the
United States.

The Zahedi story is curious. Although Zahedi was
assigned to Washington as the Shah s envoy, for the last

46

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

several months before the revolution he had returned to
Teheran, where he could be found at the Shah s constant
side. Many, including Iran's former ambassador to the
United Nations, Feredoun Hoveyda, have hinted that
Zahedi was part of the Khomeini conspiracy and was
using his position to misinform the Shah. Whether the
Shah trusted him is unclear; what is certain is that every
day, and sometimes twice a day, Zahedi would speak by
telephone with Zbigniew Brzezinski in Washington.
Through Zahedi came Brzezinski's marching orders for

the besieged monarch.

David Aaron, Brzezinski's closest aide, was mean-
while putting together an Iran Task Force that included
close consultation with the pro-Khomeini "Iran experts"
such as Marvin Zonis, Richard Cottam, James Bill, and
so forth. Aaron also served as liaison with the State
Department's Warren Christopher and with Ramsey
Clark, Christopher s former boss.

Bakhtiar faced two sorts of opposition. On the one
hand, the clergy and the radical-leftist backers of the
Khomeini forces were constantly agitating against Bakh-
tiar; on the other hand, the conservative military, which
was absolutely loyal to the Shah, was threatening a
military coup against Bakhtiar in support of the Shah.
The generals, politically naive and unable to believe that
the United States government was supporting Khomeini,
steadfastly waited for orders from the Shah and "the
Americans" to make a coup — orders that never came.
Others waited to move with Khomeini.

Bakhtiar was conducting round-the-clock negotia-
tions to find a workable coalition to support his regime,
and until the last minute, there were chances he might
succeed. The respected Ayatollah Shareatmadari showed

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH

47

signs that he and his several million followers were
prepared to support Bakhtiar as a transition government,
and some members of the National Front also agreed, as
did an increasing number of military men.

"If the priests take over Iran, then Iran will be in the
Dark Ages/' said Bakhtiar.

"I am not going to accept the disintegration of this
country. I will be pitiless with everyone who threatens
the unity and integrity of Iran. If I can have a few
weeks — say, two months — of relative calm I can start up
industrial production and make a new deal with all the
strikers,'' he declared.

"If Khomeini asks me to resign, then what I have to
say to him is: merde!" he said defiantly.

But already his coalition had begun to collapse.
General Djam, his defense minister, refused the post and
returned to London in the belief that Bakhtiar s effort
was doomed. Other ministers, including his minister of
justice, resigned.

In Paris, Khomeini refused all cooperation with the
Bakhtiar government and demanded mass demonstra-
tions against Bakhtiar in the streets. Chaos was spread-
ing. In opposition to almost everyone's advice, Khomeini
flew back to Iran on February 1 to a tumultuous welcome
organized by his cult followers. Within hours, he pro-
claimed Bakhtiar s government illegal and proclaimed
his own government of insane mullahs and advisers
Yazdi, Ghotbzadeh et al.

Just before Khomeini's return to Iran, a visitor arrived in
Teheran to take part in the anti-American demon-
strations: Ramsey Clark. Marching under banners that

48 HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

read "Death to America!" the Carter administration s
special envoy Clark declared his full support for
Khomeini.

From Teheran, he flew to Paris where he met the
ayatollah. After their talk, Clark emerged to make an
astonishing declaration in American history: "The Aya-
tollah Khomeini and I hope that the American people
and President Carter will respect our wishes, and that
the United States will not interfere through the Army,
through American advisers, the CIA, or through support
for Bakhtiar, and let the nation determine its own fate/'

By February 9, a little more than a week after
Khomeini's entry into Teheran, Bakhtiar had nearly
succeeded in establishing an accord with Mehdi Bazar-
gan, the head of the Khomeini provisional government.
A relative moderate though a man with strong ties to the
Muslim Brotherhood, Bazargan had reached a tentative
accord with Bakhtiar to halt the revolt and create some
sort of government of national unity.

That same day, however, the first organized, armed
insurrection in Iran began at an air force base outside
Teheran. All of a sudden, a huge arms depot was seized
by a clique of air force technicians. Tens of thousands of
automatic weapons were handed out to a frenzied crowd.

Fearing the rebellion would spread, Bakhtiar ordered
the air force to bomb another gigantic depot where
200,000 rifles and machine guns were stored. The air
force refused the order. Bakhtiar ordered the army into
the streets to put down the rebellion. The army did not
move. Teheran was paralyzed, as armed mobs were
battling military forces around the city and the nation.
Yet no military commander emerged to provide orders
for the troops!

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH 49

The joint general staff and the command of the
entire Iranian armed forces met to discuss the crisis.
Then in a shock to the world, they emerged to declare
that the Imperial Armed Forces would remain "im-
partial" in the crisis! The declaration appeared over the
signature of the Iranian Chief of Staff, General

Gharabaghi.

That decision was imposed with brutal force. Its very
issuance meant that the armed forces had withdrawn
from the battle, and the troops were ordered to pull back
into their barracks. Teheran and Iran's other cities were
handed over to the mobs of Khomeini worshippers.
Resistance to the army's decision was met with summary
execution. A group around General Abdul Ali Badri and
his associates opposed Gharabaghi's edict and began
making plans for a coup against the Khomeini forces to
preserve order — when he and his allies were shot in cold
blood by officers following Gharabaghi s command!
- All across Teheran, dozens of other officers were shot
by hit teams under Gharabaghi and General Fardoust's
control.

Another defector was Air Force commander General
Hossein Rabii. Although Rabii had earned a reputation
as a hardline loyalist to the Shah, in the crucial hours of
February 9*11, he suddenly announced that he was
switching sides and "joining the revolution." Report-
edly, General Rabii had been promised his own survival
and help to leave the country, in exchange for his
cooperation in securing the airports and fields for Kho-
meini. Soon afterwards, Rabii was doublecrossed, ar-
rested, and machine-gunned to death a few minutes
after a kangaroo-court trial.

In the next forty-eight hours, up to 350 Iranian

50 HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

officers of the top command were murdered by profes-
sional assassin teams. Their names were apparently
printed out from a computer at military headquarters,
which revealed every man in a command position of
logistical control, communications, and mobile units.
Those who refused to cooperate with the "revolution"

were eliminated.

Professionals in the military field were amazed at
how easily the 350,000-man Iranian armed forces were
paralyzed and disintegrated. Repeatedly, in this connec-
tion, one name comes up: General Robert E. Huyser of
the United States Air Force.

Then serving as the No. 2 man in the NATO Com-
mand in Brussels under Alexander Haig, Huyser was
sent to Iran in the beginning of January, a few days
before the Guadeloupe meeting at which Carter told the
West Germans and French that the United States was
dumping the Shah. The visit was scheduled to last only
three days, but Huyser stayed in Iran until early Febru-
ary, more than one month after his arrival.

From January 3 to February 4, General Huyser met

with the leading generals of the armed forces command
every day. The pressure was building in Iran: on January
16, the Shah of Iran left the country on "vacation" —
never to return. The army was restive and disoriented,
with its commander in chief out of the country. The
Shah went to Egypt and then Morocco, and in both
places the military leadership reportedly called the Shah
and begged him for orders to move against Khomeini.
The Shah refused to give the orders. (Later, he would
say that he was waiting for permission from Washington
to confront Khomeini directly, a remark that disgusted
manv Iranians who took it to mean that the Shah was

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH

51

openly admitting, finally, that he was a puppet of
Washington.)

General Huyser, in constant contact with Brzezinski,
told the generals that they must not move militarily
against Khomeini, no matter what might happen. If they
did, Huyser said, the U.S. military would disown them,
halt all supplies of arms and spare parts, and "cut them

off at the legs/'

Huyser foiled not one but several attempted coups
d'etat. His main function was to assure the generals that,
when the moment came and the civilian government
was incapable of withstanding the revolutionary forces,
then the United States would support a military takeover
of Iran. Contented with that assurance, many generals
simply sat back and waited, and when the mob, armed,
took to the streets, did nothing.

"Huyser really worked on them," said a source cited
by the Washington Post, referring to Iran's command.
"He really did a number on them." Said one Iranian
general of General Khosrowdad, reportedly one of the
coup plotters, "I saw Khosrowdad' s face when he came
out of one of the briefings. He looked like a private." He
was later executed by one of Khomeini's gangs.

To some of the generals, Huyser reportedly stated

that the United States did not believe that the Shah

could return, and that the Carter administration was
seeking a partnership between the clergy and the mili-
tary. General Gharabaghi may have encouraged this
belief with his advocacy of negotiations with the Kho-
meini camp.

One thing is certain: without General Huyser s mis-
sion, Khomeini would not have come to power so
effortlessly. The nation of Iran would have faced a

52

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

bloodbath of extremely serious dimensions, possibly civil
war. In the end, many Iranians and other analysts
believe, the most extreme forces in the Khomeini camp
would have been defeated and moderates forced to
compromise, possibly along the lines of the accord that
had already been worked out between Bakhtiar and
Bazargan. According to former high-ranking Iranian
officers, Khomeini would have been instantly assassi-
nated by the army intelligence division, and his followers

disorganized.

That never happened. Instead, of the nineteen to
twenty Iranian generals who signed the neutrality dec-
laration of February 9, at least ten were shot by Kho-
meini's Savama and the Revolutionary Guard in the
weeks after the revolution; several others are still in
prison in Iran. Only a few survived: Fardoust, said to be
the chief of Savama under Khomeini; Gharabaghi, who
until the summer of 1980 played an important role inside
Iran with Khomeini's armed forces; Admiral Kamal
Habibollahi, who fled Iran some months after the revo-
lution but reportedly maintained contact with Kho-
meini's military from the United States; and General
Toufanian, now living underground in the United States.

The rest are dead.

General Huyser, reassigned to the Scott Air Force
Base in Illinois, where he heads the Military Airlift
Command, has not fully explained his mission to anyone.

The best assessment of the Khomeini regime was
provided by Prime Minister Bakhtiar several days before
the mob swept away his authority. "Khomeini is an
ignoramus. He is a jealous, negative, destructive man.
Khomeini s entourage is a true zoo comprised of shady
and dubious people. Half of the people who are out

BRITISH BROUGHT DOWN THE SHAH 53

shouting against me are illiterate, and instead of going
to the mosque they should be going to school What
Khomeini has done in a few weeks has already caused
more damage than twenty-five years of the Shah's
regime/'

But what Khomeini would do in the next few months
would truly stun the world.

Treason
In Washington

Between November 1979 and April 1980, the entire
world was preoccupied on a day-to-day basis with

one question: the taking hostage of fifty-three American
citizens by an Iranian mob in Teheran. Not a single
government in the world took any decision of conse-
quence during those five months without carefully con-
sidering the latest reports on Teheran — from the Soviet

Union and Western Europe to the Arab world, Japan,
and leading developing nations. As the situation contin-
ued to deteriorate, a dozen political leaderships across
the globe were paralyzed and began to make prepara-
tions for confrontation and possibly World War III; as
things improved slightly, they would make cautious
explorations toward initiatives in other fields that had
been long postponed. Everything hung on the U.S. -Iran

54

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

55

"crisis." It was a perfect exercise in global crisis manage-
ment.

Of all the world s governments, the one the least
surprised by the taking of American hostages was the
United States government itself. The seizure of the U.S.
embassy had taken place with the full knowledge and
support of the Carter administration. Khomeini's aggres-
sion had the potential to develop into exactly the show-
down that would give the Anglo-Americans the oppor-
tunity to clobber Western Europe and Japan. The Carter
administration s alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood
had not ended with the successful completion of General
Huyser's mission; nor would it cease with the taking of
the American corps.

After Khomeini's seizure of power, the United States
did not interrupt its ongoing program of military supply,
training, and arms sales to Iran, As the ayatollah ranted
and raved against the United States, which he called
"the great Satan," Washington was shipping enormous
quantities of arms to Khomeini s Guard. Hercules and
Boeing 747 air transport aircraft shuttled back and forth
between New York and Iran, stopping in Madrid, Spain,
and the Azores, carrying spare parts for Iran's American-
made helicopters and military aircraft. The equipment
was badly needed in the battle to put down Kurdish
tribesmen in Iran's western provinces.

This resupply was officially admitted by the State
Department and reported at the time in the Executive
Intelligence Review, the Wall Street Journal, the Finan-
cial Times of London, and elsewhere.

Beginning in the late summer of 1979, U.S. intelli-
gence personnel began to move into Iran to take up

56

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

positions as advisers to the Iranian secret service, the
Savama. According to CIA sources, the American intel-
ligence community had been involved even before the
revolution in military training for Khomeini s partisans.
The relationship continued after the revolution s success.

David Aaron of the National Security Council, work-
ing with Warren Christopher and Ramsey Clark, had put
together a team of sixty CIA agents who entered Iran in
January 1979, at the same time as General Robert
Huyser, to help smooth the transition to Khomeini.

From the Iranian side, the shadowy figure who acted
as the overseer of the construction of Iran's Revolution-
ary Guard and of the dismantling of the huge armed
forces was Mustafa Chamran, like Yazdi, a U.S. -trained
adviser to Khomeini.

Military advice and provision of supplies are one

thing; complicity in the taking of American diplomatic

personnel is another. It is difficult to believe that U.S.
officials in responsible positions of leadership would so
recklessly place Americans* lives — and world peace — in
such grave danger to effect a political strategem.

But consider the following: by September 1979 it had
become clear that France, West Germany, and their
allies did not intend to capitulate to Anglo-American
pressure and were proceeding full-steam ahead with the
European Monetary System, Despite undisguised threats
and blackmail from London and Washington, Western
Europe had issued its own declaration of independence
and was busily pulling together a coalition that included

the Arab world, other OPEC countries, India, Mexico,
and the Soviet Union around a strategy whose slogan
was, in practice: Peace through Development.

By creating an artificial crisis in Iran, the Carter

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

57

administration believed that it could use the interna-
tional shock created, to go to its allies and demand that

they subordinate their independent will to the broader
concerns of "the NATO alliance." With American naval
vessels steaming toward the Indian Ocean and elite U.S.
Air Force units on alert, with the President of the United

r

States threatening to trigger a world war by sending
troops into Iran, with two thirds of world oil exports now
hanging by a thread in an unstable Persian Gulf, how

could the Europeans refuse to submit to the will of the

alliance s senior partner, reasoned Washington. Since
coming to power in 1977, the Carter administration had
sought justification for sending U.S. Marines to seize the
oil fields of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Finally, with the

taking of American hostages, it had a "Reichstag fire/'

It is likely that the plan to seize the U.S. embassy
received its final approval, making related contingency
plans operational, sometime in late September 1979. It
was then that Mustafa Chamran, the Berkeley-trained
chief of Iran's secret police, was named Iran's defense

minister.

In the same month, Iranian moderates, such as

Hassan Nazih, who headed the National Iranian Oil
Company, were purged from what became a streamlined
regime now almost totally under the control of the inner
councils of the secretive Muslim Brotherhood.

r

Chamran's colleague and partner, Foreign Minister
Ibrahim Yazdi, was at the time in New York to attend
the session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Yazdi, who had adopted the studied guise of a Muslim
revolutionary ideologue, stalked through the U.N. halls
basking in his self-styled reputation as a fiery radical and
enemy of "the great Satan," America.

58

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

However, in between his revolutionary speechifying
at the U.N,, Yazdi found time on October 3 to pay a
cordial visit to the New York Council on Foreign Rela-
tions, where he delivered a speech and then met pri-
vately with CFR officials for a period of several hours.

The next day, Yazdi held a closed-door meeting with
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The Financial Times of
London reported then on October 5 that, as a result of
these meetings, Washington had ordered the "resump-
tion of large-scale airlifts of arms to Iran" and was
considering dispatching a "limited number of techni-
cians" to Iran as well In Iran, Defense Minister Cham-
ran explained that Iran was seeking "foreign advisers" to
help train the army and the Revolutionary Guard,

Also from October 3-5, the United States began to
strengthen its military presence in the Persian Gulf and
the Indian Ocean. The Pentagon announced on October
3 that it was bolstering the U.S. Indian Ocean deploy-
ment. On the same day Sultan Qabus of Oman, a British-
trained puppet, expressed his country's willingness to
have U.S. bases on its soil to "protect" the sea lanes of
the Gulf. Immediately, in an unusual interview, Yazdi
hinted that Iran might well consider forming an alliance
with Oman to protect the straits! Yazdi said that he was
"riot acquainted with" any plans by Oman already in
that direction, but, he added coyly, Iran's "willingness
to cooperate" with Oman in the Gulf would "depend on
the circumstances." He refused to comment further.

Washington was tightening its cooperation with rev-
olutionary Iran.

During the same few days in the beginning of
October, Yazdi made contact with his old friend, Ramsey
Clark. A few days later, on October 12, the former U.S.

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

59

attorney general sent a letter of crucial significance to
the Iranian foreign minister. The letter concerned the
ongoing efforts of David Rockefeller and Dr. Henry

Kissinger to gain admission for the Shah into the United
States for medical treatment.

Clark advised Yazdi: "It is critically important to
show that despots cannot escape and live in wealth while
nations they ravaged continue to suffer. [I urgej the new
government of Iran to seek damages for criminal and
wrongful acts committed by the former Shah, and to
recover properties from the Shah, his family, and confed-
erates, unlawfully taken from the Iranian people//

The Clark letter was not leaked to the press until
after the U.S. embassy was seized on November 4. It was
taken as evidence that Special Envoy Clark had incited
the Iranians to take over the embassy and demand the
return of the Shah to Iran.

On October 14, two days after the Clark letter was
written, Yazdi left New York and arrived in Paris to map
out an "international campaign" among Iran's ambassa-
dors and intelligence agents to prepare for worldwide
agitation on the issue of the return of the Shah to Iran.

Approximately one week later, the State Department
announced that it would allow the deposed Shah to come
to New York for medical treatment.

The State Department had taken its decision only
under pressure of the most extreme sort from Kissinger,
the Rockefeller family, and related interests. The Shah
was permitted to come to New York despite official
advice from the CIA, the U.S. embassy in Teheran, and
other sources that his entry would produce a violent
reaction in Iran and probably would result in the taking
of American hostages.

60

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Official State Department cables released by Repre-
sentative George Hansen (R-Idaho), dated beginning in
August 1979 and continuing through late October, de-
clared repeatedly that the Iranians would probably at-
tempt to storm the embassy if the Shah were allowed

into the United States,

A November 18 story in The New York Times
reported: "The decision was made despite the fact that
Mr. Carter and his senior policy advisers had known for
months that to admit the Shah would endanger Ameri-
cans at the embassy in Teheran. An aide reported that at
one meeting Mr. Carter had asked, 'When the Iranians
take our people in Teheran hostage, what will you advise
me then?' "

The Times continued: "The Administration was
warned repeatedly by the Central Intelligence Agency
that the Shah's presence in America might provide the
excuse for sharp anti-Americanism and a probable action
against the embassy, reminiscent of a one day takeover

on Feb. 14."

Immediately after the Shah's October 22 arrival in
New York, Iran began making extreme threats against
the Carter administration, beginning with protests by oil
workers and culminating in an hours' long speech by
Ayatollah Khomeini himself on October 29. Khomeini
declared that Iran must "shut the door on the West"
and ranted, "These American-loving brains must be
purged from the country." Finally, on November 1, he
called upon Iran's students to "expand with all their
might their attacks against the United States and Israel,
so thev mav force the United States to return the
deposed and cruel Shah."

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

61

Despite such accumulated evidence, not a single
additional precaution was taken to protect the embassy!

The Iranian student mob seized the embassy in Iran
on November 4. Three days earlier, in Algeria, Zbigniew
Brzezinski had held a surprising meeting with Foreign
Minister Ibrahim Yazdi. According to intelligence
sources, it was during this last tete-a-tete that final
details concerning the embassy takeover were hammered
out.

Returning to Iran, Yazdi went directly into a meeting
with U.S. Charge d* Affaires Bruce Laingen. During the
hours of the embassy seizure, Yazdi and Laingen were
meeting together inside the offices of the Iranian foreign
ministry. Now, though nominally a hostage, Bruce Lain-
gen is still inside Yazdi's old offices at the foreign
ministry, where he has access to a telex machine and
other communications facilities. Reportedly, Laingen is
a close associate of the Muslim Brotherhood, dating back
to his days as the American ambassador to Malta, one of
the area headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, espe-
cially in Libya.

In the next davs, President Carter named Ramsev
Clark as official White House envoy plenipotentiary to
Iran — the same Ramsey Clark who, only a few months
earlier, was marching under "Death to America" ban-
ners in Teheran,

With the taking of the hostages, the Carter adminis-
tration — as preplanned — set into motion its scenario for
global crisis management.

First, President Carter announced the freezing of all
Iranian financial assets in the United States and its
banks, including branches of American banks abroad.

62

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Instantly, the world financial markets were thrown into
a panic, and big dollar depositors in Western Europe and
the United States— particularly the OPEC central
banks — began to pull back from further commitments.

The administration had announced that it was invok-
ing the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The decision, it was learned, had been made two weeks
before the embassy was taken over.

Randy Kau, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency official placed in the Treasury Department told

the Executive Intelligence Review: "FEMA is involved
in the overall planning. . . . We at FEMA had this plan
to freeze the Iranian assets two weeks before we did it,
and I spent the entire two weeks on the phone trying to
kill the rumors that we would do it."

The admission shows that the Anglo-American finan-
cial elite had known that a U.S. -Iran crisis would erupt
in November and had already taken measures to protect
itself. Among those bankers was David Rockefeller,
whose insistent demand that the Shah come to the
United States had been the chief cause of the crisis in
the first place.

(Somewhat later, Mexican doctors who had been
treating the Shah in Mexico angrily revealed that there
was absolutely no medical reason why the Shah could
not have continued to receive adequate medical care
without traveling to the United States.)

The seizure of the $6 billion or more in Iranian U.S.
assets had the effect of undermining confidence in the
dollar and weakening its value as an international reserve
currency. The Eurodollar market was paralyzed, and
most international lending halted until complex legal
matters were sorted out. In certain respects, the Carter-

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

63

U.S. Treasury decision was illegal, since it affected
branches of U.S. banks overseas that under normal
international law fall under the sovereignty of their host
country.

But the most serious result by far was the effect of
the Treasury action in scaring other OPEC governments
away from any long-term lending, precisely at a time
when West Germany and France were seeking to attract
such deposits into the financial apparatus associated with
the European Monetary System. Only one month before
the Iranian crisis erupted, French Foreign Minister Jean
Fran5ois-Poncet had told a United Nations press confer-
ence that it was his "vision" that the EMS eventually
replace the International Monetary Fund and World
Bank as the center of world finance.

The Carter administration's insistent demands that
Western Europe and Japan invoke economic sanctions
against Iran were like asking its allies to cut their own
throats. But the demand succeeded in raising tensions
between the Europeans and the oil-producing countries,
including Saudi Arabia, which saw the possibility of
economic confrontation between the developed West
and OPEC as a grave threat to its own interests.

Second, the U.S.-Iranian confrontation gave Carter
the pretext he sought for vastly expanding U.S. military
presence in the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.
Within days of the taking of the hostages, a U.S. fleet of
several aircraft carriers and up to thirty other vessels was
dispatched to the Gulf; the U.S. naval presence in nearby
waters was reinforced; and negotiations were opened for
U.S. military facilities in the Indian Ocean littoral states
of Oman, Somalia, and Kenya.

Contingency plans for building up U.S. military-

64

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

forces in Egypt, with related support from Israel, became
operational. Heavy pressure was placed on Saudi Arabia
and other states in the region to join the American
military effort, and the Camp David axis took on re-
newed vigor as a tool of NATO influence in the Middle

East.

These measures were not aimed at the Iranians.

At any moment, the Pentagon might order a sudden
military strike against Iran, in the form of a seizure of
Iran's Kharg Island, from which oil exports are loaded;
or a bombing of Iran's oil fields; or a naval blockade of
the Persian Gulf; or even a desperate effort to rescue the
hostages. Any one or all of these measures would not

dissuade Khomeini.

Instead, as most analysts acknowledged at the time,

the chief effect of any U.S. military action would be to
create an uncontrollable situation near the source of two
thirds of the world's oil supplies and probably trigger an
outbreak of radical terrorism throughout the Arabian
Gulf states by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Washington had neatly positioned itself into a situa-
tion in which it could almost dictate its demands to
Western Europe and Japan. "Go along with what we
say, or we will cut off your oil supplies," was the message
delivered to European capitals from the Carter adminis-
tration.

The message was not lost on the European elite. In a
November 28 column in Le Figaro, Paul Marie de la
Gorce — whose columns often reflect views of the French
presidential palace— examined the options under discus-
sion for U.S. military action against Iran and concluded
that each of them would mean "more, damages for
-Europe and Japan than for Iran." Those who advocate
such solutions, he said, are "consciously or not inspired

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

65

by the lessons given by Henry Kissinger," and he warned
that even world war could result from such a clumsy
intervention.

The crisis simmered for several months on the brink
of confrontation. Throughout the winter President Car-
ter's reelection chances shot up so rapidly that Ted
Kennedy s head spun, and Carter played the hostage
crisis for all it was worth. On the eve of the crucial New
Hampshire primary, for instance, the President let it be
known that a diplomatic initiative involving the United
Nations and Iran's newly elected President, Bani-Sadr,
was about to secure the release of the hostages — but, of
course, no such release took place.

Finally, at the end of April, the Iran crisis broke in a
way that almost touched off World War III.

The April 24 American military rescue operation into
Iran was a hoax. But it was a hoax that came within
inches of enveloping the United States in a thermo-
nuclear holocaust.

That the raid would occur was no secret. Professionals
in the world's intelligence community expected the
American armed forces to attempt a rescue mission or
retaliatory action. In its April 22 issue, the Executive
Intelligence Review reported — in an article written at

least six days before the April 24 raid — that the Carter
administration "has begun a headlong drive toward a
'Cuban missile crisis'-style thermonuclear confrontation
with the Soviet Union over Iran, timed to occur between
late April and May 11, for the purposes of blackmailing
Western Europe and Japan into submitting to Anglo-
American political dictates."

European statesmen were told bluntly that Carter

66

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

and Brzezinski would view the response of Europe to the
Iran intervention as a "test of the Atlantic alliance."
According to sources in Paris and Bonn, Western Europe
pointed out that any unilateral military action by Wash-
ington would not only result in a strategic disaster, but
probably would lead to Soviet intervention in Iran.

To this, Brzezinski replied curtly that "it is now up to
Europe to prevent World War III/' reported the West
German Frankfurter Rundschau.

The Soviet Union was equally explicit in its warnings.
"Washington is not only aiming at aggravating its con-
flict with Teheran," said Pravda April 11. "Judging from
everything it is venturing a risky bluff: blackmailing
Iran, as well as America's allies who depend on oil
deliveries from the Persian Gulf, with the threat of direct

^ _

military intervention." This strategy, said Pravda, "puts
Western Europe and Japan in the position of being
forced participants in a game designed to strengthen the
shaken position of U.S. imperialism in the Near and
Middle East." Pravda concluded that "the prospect of
being deprived of Iranian oil does not provoke any
enthusiasm, especially not in Tokyo, Bonn, or Paris."

And, just before the U.S. intervention, Zbignieu
Brzezinski himself declared that the Soviet Union was
building up its military for a possible intervention.
"There are reports, credible reports, of a Soviet build-up
in the Transcaucasian Military District in some patterns
reminiscent of the Soviet build-up north of

Afghanistan," he stated.

Yet, despite the risk of World War III, President
Carter in mid-April delivered a terrifying ultimatum to
Western Europe. "I expect them to comply with the
political and economic sanctions against Iran," declared

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

67

Carter, or else the U.S. response "may well involve
military means," That same day, Deputy Secretary of
State Warren Christopher told ABC-TV's Issues and
Answers that in regard to Europe "Washington is looking
for action, not words."

In Europe, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
Robert W. Komer, the architect of the Rapid Deploy-
ment Force (or "Farce," as some military wags called it),
met with the NATO Military Committee in Brussels to
present a brutal set of demands. He requested the
immediate acceleration of nuclear and conventional
weapons "modernization," the build-up of military re-
serves, war materiel stockpilings, and greater NATO
involvement in making its commercial airlines available
for military airlifts into the Middle East. In short, the
U.S. administration was demanding that Europe drop its
commitment to detente and join Carter s jihad into the
Middle East. The answer from Bonn and Paris was no.

Only days before the raid into Iran, Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance tendered his resignation. "We haven't
begun just an attack on Iran. We may have started
World War III," said Vance to a friend. Together with a
minority faction of the Carter administration and its
Trilateral Commission supporters such as George Ball
and Averell Harriman, Vance bailed out, convinced that
Brzezinski was careening toward war.

Only hours after the failure of the raid had become
known, and as the world recovered from its shock at the
U.S. action and its incompetence, charges flew that the
entire operation had been coordinated from beginning

to end between Carter-Brzezinski and the Khomeini
regime.

According to French intelligence sources, the final

68

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

details of the April 24 raid were the subject of a meeting
held in Paris between Iran's Foreign Minister Ghotbza-
deh and First Secretary Murphy of the U.S. embassy in
France. The state-controlled Iraqi radio charged that the
U.S. attack was "play-acting carried out in orchestration
between Washington and Teheran." When White House
Press Secretary Jody Powell was asked the day after the
raid about prior collaboration between the Carter regime
and Ghotbzadeh, he issued a stony "no comment."

The administration's explanation for the raid's fail-
ure—that it had been caused by the simultaneous failure
of three of the eight helicopters used— was simply not
believed. According to many reports, the real reason for
the debacle of the U.S. action, in which a helicopter and
a huge C-130 air transport plane reportedly collided on
the ground in Iran and burst into flames while trying to
flee, was Soviet military intervention. One source said
that the raid failed when an overflight of Soviet Mig-21s
staged a show of force directly above the American
landing party, and the commander of the raiding force
then decided to beat a hasty retreat, leading to a panic
and the crash. Other sources with CIA connections
reported that the USSR, had bombed the U.S, force
almost as soon as it landed at the staging ground for
Phase II of the raid, and that the administration s official
version of the story was a coverup.

Is it possible that the raid may have been partly
designed by Brzezinski and the National Security Coun-
cil to test Soviet reaction to such a deployment? By
sending a small force into Iran as occurred on April 24,
Brzezinski may have been seeking to find out what
Soviet units would be placed on alert, what missile sites
and troop emplacements would be activated, what would

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

69

be the posture of Soviet forces in Eastern Europe and
along the China frontier, and so forth.

If this is the case, the U.S. raid into Iran was a dry
run to test the U.S. strategic doctrine — first put forward
by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger — for a
" limited nuclear war/* Ever since the proclamation of
the so-called Carter doctrine in January 1980, the United
States had made it public that it intends to defend its
"interests" in the Persian Gulf by force in case of a
Soviet invasion from the north. But, every analyst knows,
the Soviet Union has, by virtue of its proximity and its
recent arms build-up program, an overwhelming con-
ventional force advantage in the Middle East, so over-
whelming, in fact, that if Moscow should decide to move
into Iran or even the Arab Gulf states, the United States
would have no adequate response — short of "tactical"
nuclear warfare.

It is a given among experts that such a war could not
be contained at the local level but would quickly escalate
into all-out thermonuclear war. For this reason, many
military authorities have found the Carter doctrine to be
insane.

Nevertheless, it was this doctrine that was officially
proclaimed as American policy in Presidential Directive
No. 59, issued in August 1980.

What is clear from the facts known about the April
24 raid is that the Carter administration, in going into
Iran, had everything on its mind but an attempt to free
the hostages. On the contrary, by charging into Iran with
guns blazing, the U.S. administration guaranteed that
the hostages would remain in Iran for months to come,
It did this by strengthening the Khomeini forces, espe-
cially the extremists in the Islamic Republican Party led

70

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

by Ayatollah Beheshti, at the expense of President

Abolhassan Bani-Sadr.

In January 1980, the presidential election in Iran led
to the victory of Bani-Sadr by an overwhelming margin
of 75 percent. In ordinary times, the Parisian-trained
Bani-Sadr would not be considered a moderate: he was
a confirmed supporter of Khomeini, rigorously indoctri-
nated in the finer points of the lunatic fundamentalism
now governing the country, and he was a fanatical
advocate of imposing upon Iran the anti-industry geno-
cidal policies of Cambodia's Pol Pot regime. Neverthe-
less, in the political spectrum of Iranian politics, Bani-
Sadr was more amenable to a stable government than
the mullahs of the IRP. He had gained the political
support of what was left of Iran's urban intellectuals and
middle class, many of whom privately despised him but

viewed him as the lesser evil.

Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and British Foreign

Secretary Lord Carrington had also hoped that Bani-
Sadr might be able to pull together a government in Iran
that could eventually ally itself to the U.S. NATO bloc
on the basis of Muslim fundamentalism. To accomplish
that, Vance and Carrington looked for a deal with Iran:
release of the U.S. hostages in exchange for a resumed
flow of arms and economic aid to Bani-Sadr's (and
Khomeini's) Iran. In a press conference in February,
President Carter declared that if the hostages were
released, Washington would eagerly consider a "normal"
relationship to Iran, including sending military aid to the
regime.

The April 24 raid changed all that.
The failed U.S. action automatically precipitated a
sudden rise in the strength of the extremists and ended

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

71

whatever chance Bani-Sadr might have had Jo assemble
a workable government. Occurring as it did only a few
weeks before the Iranian parliamentary vote, it gave an
enormous victory at the polls to the IRP and its mullahs,
and handed Bani-Sadr's secular forces a resounding
defeat. Because Khomeini had declared that it was the
parliament that would assume the responsibility for
deciding the fate of the U.S. hostages, that vote made it
certain that the hostages would remain in Iran.

Until late December 1979, almost one year after the
Khomeini revolution and more than seven weeks after
the seizure of the American embassy, Captain Siavash
Setoudeh, the defense attache of the Iranian embassy in
Washington, conducted his daily business inside the
offices of the U.S. Office of Naval Research.

Setoudeh, representing a government with whom the
United States was theoretically at the verge of war,
worked under the direct supervision of the Office of
Naval Intelligence and ONR, assisted by a sixteen-man
team of Iranian terrorists and gun-runners. Within this
highly sensitive facility at 800 North Quincy Street in
Arlington, Virginia, accessible only to individuals with
top security clearance, Captain Setoudeh, Captain Man-
sour, a recently arrived Iranian admiral, and a dozen
other military agents of Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic
Republic of Iran worked with U.S. naval intelligence
and with the approval of Zbignew Brzezinski's National
Security Council.

The Carter administration's alliance with the Kho-
meini regime had gone way beyond the negotiating
stage.

72

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

At the end of December 1979, Setoudeh was expelled
from his American offices, following widespread expo-
sure of his presence and activities there by New Solidar-
ity International Press Service and the Executive Intelli-
gence Review. Despite Setoudeh's expulsion, the Penta-
gon and the State Department refused to make any
comment on his activities or why he was allowed to use
offices virtually inside the Pentagon itself.

Setoudeh was allowed to remain within the United
States, returning to his original office in the Iranian
embassy on Massachusetts Avenue — despite a presiden-
tial order one month earlier expelling all Iranian diplo-
mats in retaliation for the seizure of the U.S. embassy.

Reportedly, the Iranian unit headed by Setoudeh was
involved in coordinating the activities of Iranian students
in at least forty American colleges and universities with
which the Iranian military attache had liaison. These
activities included arms smuggling, gun running, and
conduiting weapons to terrorist units sent from Iran into

the United States.

In November 1979, just before the Setoudeh affair

broke into the press, Ayatollah Khalkhali of the Veda-
yeen-e Islam (the Iranian branch of the Muslim Broth-
erhood) declared that he had sent killer squads into the
United States to assassinate leading U.S. political figures
and "enemies of the revolution," including a specified

^

list of Iranians of the former regime.

According to Iranian sources, in the period after the
takeover of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, at least 300
armed and well-trained Iranian terrorist personnel en-
tered the United States on false passports with phony
visas that were obtained from a visa stamp stolen from

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

73

the occupied U.S. embassy. In an interview with the
Paris-based Liberation magazine, Khalkhali boasted that
his teams have been trained "in the Middle East and in
the United States itself."

The Setoudeh story broke in the following way.

On December 19, 1979, the New York offices of
NSIPS news agency picked up rumors of direct collabo-
ration between the Iranian embassy and the Pentagon.
According to Iranian sources opposed to the Khomeini
regime, Captain Setoudeh — who was described as a
"naval liaison officer who is the defense attache of the
Iranian embassy"— could be found located at 800 North
Quincy Street,

The next day, the NSIPS Washington bureau con-
firmed that the building in question was wholly owned
and operated by the Office of Naval Research. An ONR
spokesman, who refused to identify himself, said that the
building was entirely occupied by offices containing U.S.
military personnel, "except for a few foreigners who
have reason for being there." He refused to elaborate.

That same day, an NSIPS investigative reporter
called the offices of Captain Setoudeh, identifying her-
self as a representative of "a Hong Kong arms dealer."
Setoudeh immediately came to the phone. When the
caller said that her employer had instructed her to get in
touch with Setoudeh to arrange a meeting for him
"when he arrives in the country next week," the Iranian
readily agreed.

Setoudeh was told that a "massive" arms shipment
was coming into the United States "but outside normal
channels." He replied: "That would be a good sugges-
tion, to have a meeting together and discuss these things

74

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

and then if we can do any help to this problem [sic], by
all means. Otherwise, then we'll ship it to someone else
in the country, or maybe in the embassy."

Setoudeh confirmed, twice, that he is the "proper
person" to handle such matters. He asked only, "Could
you tell me only which force is your company dealing
with? Is it the air force? The navy? Which one?" He also
said that he would be glad to clear his entire schedule
for the next week — "even Christmas Day" — to meet the

"arms dealer."

Queried about his status in the United States because

of President Carter s expulsion order issued on December

12, Setoudeh laughed and replied, "That doesn't apply

to me," (In fact, at this time, more than two weeks after

the order was given, not a single one of the 183 Iranian

diplomats ordered to leave had gone, and Iran's embassy

and consulates were functioning normally. Not one

official did leave, until Washington broke relations with

Iran four months later.)

At the Iranian embassy, a spokesman for Charge
d' Affaires Ali Agha confirmed that Setoudeh was the
embassy's military attache.

That afternoon, two reporters from NSIPS paid an
unannounced visit to Captain Setoudeh's office to see
what they might discover. At the entrance to the impos-
ing building, the only identification sign read: "Office
of Naval Research." Inside, a sleepy, Christmas-minded
guard waved the reporters on.

Upstairs, they found a bustling office filled with
Iranians. The walls were covered with portraits of Aya-
tollah Khomeini, revolutionary slogans, and other signs
and symbols confirming that the office was indeed loyal
to the Khomeini regime.

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

75

When the reporters began questioning several of
those present and taking photographs of the office and
its decor, pandemonium broke loose, "You can't do
that!" shouted an Iranian officer, who later identified
himself as Captain Mansour. Amid the ensuing chaos,
the office did admit that it was occupying U.S. govern-
ment space. For a period of fifteen minutes, the two
Americans were physically detained by Khomeini's mili-
tary representatives; they were threatened and their film
confiscated by force.

Immediately afterward, the NSIPS correspondents
went to the press briefing by Jody Powell, the spokesman
for President Carter, at the White House. The NSIPS
reporter put before the press and Mr. Powell the prelim-
inary results of the investigation. But Powell — like the
State Department earlier — had no explanation for the
presence of Setoudeh in the secret offices of Naval
Research. Nor would the White House or the State
Department comment on why the Iranian diplomats had
not left the country in the face of the order from the
President that they be ousted.

At the State Department briefing, Hodding Carter
III was equally uncommunicative, promising to answer
the questions after checking with Secretary of State
Vance. After the briefing, however, State s Near East Af-
fairs public information chief George Sherman told one
of the NSIPS correspondents that "I might be able to
help you a little more if you will tell me why you are
asking that question."

A dozen offices of the Pentagon all refused comment.

By the following day, December 21, reporters in
Washington, including the White House correspondents
for several major national networks and leading Wash-

76

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

ington dailies, were now looking into the story. That
same day NSIPS called Captain Setoudeh for a telephone
interview. He was asked his function.

"This is the office dealing with students in American
universities," he said, after some hesitation. "I deal with
both military students and civilians, especially those in
engineering courses/' According to Setoudeh, at each
university in the country where Iranian students are
present— and he claimed over forty— there is a military

liaison officer."

Setoudeh's admission that he coordinates student

activities touched off another important line of investi-
gation. Quickly, NSIPS established that Setoudeh was a
close collaborator of Abolfazl Nahidian; he has admitted
meeting with Nahidian on several occasions. Nahidian,
who purports to be a Washington rug merchant with
offices on Wisconsin Avenue, is a top coordinator of
Savama, Khomeini's secret police, in the United States.
In his business, Nahidian travels back and forth between
Washington and Teheran, and he is an outspoken sup-
porter of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Reportedly, aside from rugs, Nahidian has been
involved in conduiting millions of dollars since the
Iranian revolution to pro-Khomeini terrorist groups in
the United States. Many of the 300 Iranian students who
reportedly came through U.S. ports of entry bearing
phony visas were shuttled into the Nahidian-Setoudeh
circles and then into safehouses around the country. One
of Nahidian s bodyguards, David Belfield (a.k.a. Daoud
Salahuddin), is alleged to have been the murderer of Ali
Tabatabai, an anti-Khomeini Iranian who headed the
Iran Freedom Foundation, assassinated in Maryland on

July 22, 1980.

No law enforcement personnel came to congratulate

TREASON IN WASHINGTON

77

NSIPS on its exposure of Nahidian and Setoudeh. Top
administration officials were tight-lipped and refused all
comment. A few days after the story broke, Setoudeh
was quietly moved to the Iranian embassy. Reporters
attempting to find out why Setoudeh was allowed into
those premises and what his connection to the Pentagon
was were politely but firmly rebuffed, and no more was
heard of Captain Setoudeh.

Given the Carter administration's alliance with the Kho-
meini regime on every level, the question emerges: Who
controls the "students" who hold the hostages? Who are
they?

When the U.S. embassy was taken over, a previously
unknown organization calling itself "Students Following
the Iman's Line" was identified as the group that led the
seizure. (The "Imam," of course, is Khomeini.) the
leader of the organization was said to be a dentist named
Dr. Habibollah Peyman, who worked closely with Aya-
tollah Khoini, an obscure mullah.

The students' organization is officially part of Ayatol-
lah Khalkhali s Fedayeen-e Islam, and works with the

so-called Party of God (Hizbollahi) militia. The Hizbol-
lahi is feared in Iran because of its gangster tactics and
frequent use of violence, acting as a strike force — or a
kind of SS — on behalf of the radical faction of the
Islamic Republican Party.

According to Iranian intelligence sources, the stu-
dents' leader, Dr. Peyman, spent many years outside of
Iran, during the era of the Shah, primarily in Europe.
During this time, Peyman was a paid agent of the
Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service.

The relationship exposes one of the secrets of the

78

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Ayatollah Khomeini. The Mossad runs like a thread
throughout the command structure of the Islamic fun-
damentalist regime. For example, while involved with
the plasma physics program at Berkeley, in California,
Mustafa Chamran, Khomeini's defense minister, made
connection with an extremist faction of the Mossad via
circles associated with Professor Yuval Neeman. Nee-
man, an advanced theoretical physicist, is the father of
Israel's nuclear weapons capability and the founder of
the ultra-nationalist Tekhiya Party in Israel. For a time,
Neeman was a visiting professor at the University of
Texas at Austin, where he reputedly also. established ties
to Ibrahim Yazdi, then at Baylor University in Texas.

After he left Berkeley, Chamran went to Lebanon
where he became the commander of a violent Shiite
extremist group called Al Amal, which maintained ties to
both Colonel Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and to Shiite
radicals in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, In Lebanon, Cham-
ran worked with radical factions of the Palestinian
guerrilla movement, especially those believed to be
presently under the control of Israeli intelligence. (The
Israelis often use terror by "Palestinian extremists' ' to
bolster Israel's position both internally and in the West.)
When the Iranian revolution started, Chamran went to
Iraq to see Khomeini and traveled with him to Paris.
Since then, the Al Amal organization has become overtly

pro-Israeli and anti-PLO.

In the aftermath of Khomeini's takeover, Chamran
and Yazdi took control of the enormous apparatus of
Savak, working closely with General Fardoust. Today,
Israel's Mossad is believed to have a disproportionate
influence in the inner councils of the Khomeini regime.
The extent of its influence is not known, but the fact

TREASON IN WASHINGTON 79

that the Mossad-tainted Chamran and Yazdi gained
control of the Savak organization has given them enor-
mous power.

So far, we have found that the "Islamic fundamentalist
revolution" that seized power in February 1979 was
instigated by British Petroleum, was given crucial assist-
ance by a NATO general, forged a continuing alliance
with the "Satan" government of the United States, and
is heavily penetrated by the Israeli secret intelligence
service. Now we answer the question: who is the Ayatol-
lah Khomeini?

i

I

Savak's
Insane Ayatollah

t is August 1953, The rollercoaster reign of Prime
Minister Mohammed Mossadegh is coming to an end.
After several years as the leader of Iran's almost success-
ful republican revolution, the tide is beginning to turn,
and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is preparing to
bring the Shah back to Iran and restore him to the
throne. Several years before, Mossadegh had ridden to
power with the support of Iran's communists and, espe-
cially, with the power provided him by several leaders of
the Shiite clergy. Now, in 1953, the clergy has aban-
doned Mossadegh. Their unofficial leader is Ayatollah
Kashani, a mullah cast more in the tradition of an Al
Capone gangster than a religious leader. Together with
another mullah named Shams Qanad-Abadi, Ayatollah
Kashani commands an empire of street gangs and reli-
gious fanatics. Now the CIA is ready to use them.

80

SAVAK'S INSANE AYATOLLAH

81

In Teheran, agent Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt is passing
out funds to the city's underworld for a made-to-order
"demonstration" in support of the Shah. The several
thousands of demonstrators, who are even now trying to
memorize the slogans they will chant, are only window-
dressing for the operation that, in a matter of hours, will
turn the tables on the prime minister.

It is at least marginally useful politically, the CIA
reasons, to have some chanting Loyalists in the streets
clamoring for the Shah, if only for newsreel footage and
the world press. But the real "revolution" against Mos-
sadegh is a decision that has already been taken by the
leaders of the American, British, and Israeli secret ser-
vices and the boards of major international oil compa-
nies. It is their petty cash that finances the mob demon-
strations, and it is Ayatollah Kashani who "gets out the
troops."

Lost among the 5,000 or so demonstrators shouting
"Long Live the Shah!" is an obscure mullah named
Ruhollah Khomeini.

It is one of the finer ironies of history that the man
responsible for bringing down the Shah in 1979 was a
paid agent of the monarchist forces twenty-five years
earlier. The complete story of Khomeini's life probably
will not be known for some time, but enough is known
already about the mullah who has brought the Middle
Ages back to Iran to enable us to judge what kind of a
man he is today.

To begin with, his name is not really Khomeini; he
selected the name "Ruhollah Khomeini" for himself
sometime in the 1930s. Because his grandfather was born
in Kashmir, India and the family was originally of Indian
Muslim origin, one of Khomeini's brothers chose the

82

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

name "Hindi,'* reportedly because of his business deal-
ings with India. Some reports say that Khomeini himself
was not even born in Iran, but in India, and migrated to

Iran in his early youth.

Some sixty years ago, during" the upheavals in Iran in
the early 1920s, when the late Shah's father Reza Khan
Pahlavi was in the process of seizing power, young
Khomeini received his first political battle-scars. At the
time, the young Reza Pahlavi conferred with the leader
of the republican revolution in Turkey, the famous
AtaturL Ataturk urged the brash young military officer
to follow his example and to establish a constitutional
republic in Persia, urging Pahlavi to reject the concept
of a monarchy as too rigid and confining, inappropriate
for a modernizing nation. Initially, Reza considered the
idea — until violent uprisings of the Iranian clergy forced
him to decide in favor of a monarchy. And so he became
Reza Shah. Khomeini, then in his teens and reportedly
bearing a grudge against Reza for having somehow been
involved in the death of his father, joined the mullahs'
protest.

Decades later, it was the same Khomeini who would
be the bitterest foe of the monarch — but not before he
and his brother had become part of Ayatollah Kashani' s
drive to put Reza's son on the throne.

The CIA was not the only agency sponsoring the
1953 overthrow of Mossadegh, Ayatollah Kashani was
close to the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iran,
the Fedayeen-e Islam. In the 1950s, the acknowledged
leader of the Fedayeen was Ayatollah Navabsafavi. With
between 200 and 300 members, the Fedayeen had been
in secret existence since the early 1940s, when the
Brotherhood's apparatus in Egypt — which itself had

SAVAK'S INSANE AYATOLLAH

83

been cut out of whole cloth by the British intelligence
service — extended its reach into Iran. The Iranian
branch of the Brotherhood was known almost exclusively
for its spectacular assassinations, including the murders
of at least two prime ministers.

British secret intelligence's influence over Iran's cler-
gymen was no secret, even many years ago. "Many
influential clergymen formed alliances with representa-
tives of foreign powers, most often the British," wrote
the Shah's twin sister, Ashraf Pahlavi, in her book Faces
In A Mirror, "And there was, in fact, a standing joke in
Persia that said if you picked up a clergyman's beard,
you would see the words 'Made in England' stamped on
the other side." After World War 11, says Ashraf, "With
the encouragement of the British, who saw the mullahs
as an effective counterforce to the Communists, the
elements of the extreme religious right were starting to
surface again, after years of being suppressed/'

Kashani and the "religious right" based their power
on the shocktroops of organized crime in Iran. In Iran,
the mafia is called chaqou-kesh. The words mean "knife
slayers" in Persian, derived from their trademark of
stabbing people to death with concealed daggers.

The Iranian mafia is found in the bazaars, the

marketplaces, especially in the critical fruit and vegeta-
ble markets; From this powerful base, it also controls
prostitution, gambling — and especially the extremely
lucrative narcotics racket. Like some exotic version of a
New York or Chicago "godfather," in 1953 Ayatollah

6 In 1978, a CIA official told me that the mafia controls nearly
all food production and distribution in Iran.

84

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Kashani simply ordered his lieutenants to put together a

rent-a-mob for the CIA.

After the 1953 putsch, with the Shah back in power,
a certain military officer named Teymour Bakhtiar
emerged into the limelight. Promoted to the position of
general and then named military governor of Teheran
and director of army intelligence, Bakhtiar became a
trusted aide to the Shah. In 1957, when the State
Security and Intelligence Organization (Savak) was es-
tablshed, Bakhtiar became its first director. From the
start, Iran's new intelligence service received a great deal
of support from Israel s Mossad, especially relying on
Israeli torture specialists.

The Savak also began to put on its payroll a vast
army of mullahs and ayatollahs, preferring those with

links to the chaqou-kesh. Salaries from Savak to the

mullahs ranged from as low as $100 a month to as high
as $1,000 a month. One of the people placed on the
Savak payroll was Ruhollah Khomeini — at a stipend of

$300 per month.

At the time, Khomeini was a low-ranking teacher at
the important theological center of Qom, Iran. Reports
in the New York Times and elsewhere have tried to
portray Khomeini s role in Qom as a major scholar of
religious law and an advocate of the system of Plato's
Republic. It is there, that Khomeini, acting as a parody
of the fanatical mullah, began to build his cult following.

The Israeli connection to Savak at this time undoubt-
edly penetrated deep into Iran's Islamic fundamentalist
clergy; it would not be surprising to find that agents of
the Israeli intelligence service made contact with Kho-
meini as early as 1957. In that year, there were eleven
Mossad and Shin Beth agents in Iran to help organize

SAVAK'S INSANE AYATOLLAH

85

Savak. By 1976 over 500 Israeli intelligence personnel
were stationed in Teheran, where they were involved in
almost every branch of the Savak apparatus. The Mos-
sad's influence was reputed to be concentrated in the
supersecret Special Intelligence Bureau, established as
an independent entity inside the Savak. The Bureau's
chief was General Hossein Fardoust. Through Savak and
the Special Intelligence Bureau, the entire organization
of mullahs was penetrated and controlled. "There were
only two kinds of mullahs in Iran in the 1950s/' said an
informed source. "Those that were pro-Savak, and those
that were in jail." Khomeini was not in jail.

Teymour Bakhtiar was a sadist, who developed a
reputation for the crudest sorts of tortures and confine-
ment. But he was also an agent of the British— and the
Kennedy administration.

After John F. Kennedy came to the White House in
1961, Washington soon began placing enormous pres-
sures on the Shah of Iran. The Shah had been showing
unfortunate signs of wanting to cooperate with the non-
Seven Sisters oil companies, especially Italy's state-sector
oil company, ENI. To reassert control over Iran's oil for
the Anglo-American consortium, headed by British Pe-
troleum, Kennedy threatened the Shah's regime.* In
January 1961, coinciding almost to the day with Ken-
nedy s inauguration, demonstrations and protests in Iran,
mostly sponsored by communists and the clergy, ex-
ploded the country. Early in 1961, Kennedy sent Averell
Harriman, the former New York governor and patrician,
to present the U.S. demands to the Shah. Behind the

* At about the same time, ENI\s chairman Enrico Mattel was
assassinated.

86

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

scenes, Bakhtiar was secretly funding anti-Shah demon-
strators with Savak funds. The Shah realized that Bakh-
tiar was acting as a traitor, and he dismissed him from
his position as head of the Savak. Several other top-
ranking military men were fired at the same time. But a
few months later, under pressure of a teachers' strike
that led to violence, the Shah bowed to the pressure
from Kennedy and Harriman and installed Ali Amini as
the new prime minister. It was rumored that Teymour
Bakhtiar had been working to stir up the teachers'

demonstrations.

The organizer of the teachers' strike was Mohammed
Derakhshesh, an opportunist who hired himself out as a
spy for the British and who became minister of education
in the Amini Cabinet; eighteen years later, Derakhshesh
would travel to the United States to meet the National
Security Council through Richard Cottam, the Univer-
sity of Pittsburgh professor and former CIA agent. The
Shah himself confirmed, in an interview several years
ago in Newsweek, that Kennedy forced him to name
Amini as prime minister. When, asked about such re-
ports, the Shah declared: "It's past history but correct."

In 1962, the Shah visited Washington for a face-to-
face meeting with Kennedy. Earlier that year, the Shah
had also confronted Bakhtiar with the evidence of his
sedition and fomenting of rebellion, whereupon Bakhtiar
fled Iran into exile in Switzerland. Now, in his meeting
with Kennedy, the Shah proposed an amicable agree-
ment: if Kennedy would allow the Shah to oust Prime
Minister Amini, he would agree to the policies de-
manded by Washington. Upon his return to Iran, the
Shah fired Amini— and then reneged on the deal. Ken-
nedy was enraged.

SAVAK'S INSANE AYATOLLAH

87

Thus, later that year the American president called
General Bakhtiar to the United States.

Ostensibly arriving in the country for medical treat-
ment, Bakhtiar flew in from Switzerland and went
directly to the White House, where he met with JFK.
The subject of the meeting: to plot against the Shah.
The means they selected: Ruhollah Khomeini.

During the previous year, the elderly ayatollah had
been working extensively with General Bakhtiar's Savak.
Building a reputation for himself as an uncompromising,
fanatical ideologue, Khomeini was fast becoming for
more and more Iranians a cult hero. It was Khomeini
who would be pushed forward to lead the fight against
the Shah's 1963 " White Revolution/'

The White Revolution was the Shah's project to
undercut the power of the reactionary opposition, which
for many years had been a British asset.

"Who were the British agents in Teheran who led
the anti-Shah revolts of 1963?" A broadcast of the Free
Voice of Iran, an anti-Khomeini radio station, orrjune 5,
1980, explained: 'The British mercenaries in Iran could
generally be classified into four groups. The first group
was the paid politicians and journalists . . . whose nu-
merous treacheries were revealed during the struggle for
the nationalization of the oil industry, after which they
were greatly weakened and did not have the power to
stand up. The second was the Freemasons, the treacher-
ous members of which were and continue to be the tools

of British policy and protectors of British interests in
Iran.

"The third group of agents implementing British
policies in Iran were some of the khans, feudalists, and
big landowners whose filthy face in treason against the

88 HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

homeland and service to the British Empire has been
revealed on many occasions in the course of Iran s
history. . . . Finally, some of [the] pseudoclergy have
been on Britain's payroll for a long time."

It was the alliance between the Freemasons, the old
landowners, and the clergy that mounted the operation
against the Shah in 1963. Its leader was Khomeini, but

only as a symbol.

Concerning Khomeini, the Free Voice of Iran reports
that "since the days he was a religious student, he
received rations from the British, and under the label of
* monthly tuition' from the proceeds of the Indian awqaf
[religious affairs department], received monthly pay-
ments from British agents and was in constant contact

with his masters/'

In 1962, the bearded ayatollah with the evil stare
issued his first major proclamation, attacking the govern-
ment's plan to enfranchise women as a violation of the
status of women under Islam. Then, in 1963, when the
White Revolution was underway, Khomeini had his first
serious confrontation with the Shah— ten years after he
had marched in the streets to bring the monarch to
power.

The White Revolution challenged Iran's old families,
since it expropriated feudal estates and either handed
them over to peasants or turned them into state cooper-
atives. The act struck at the heart of the feudal-clergy
alliance. By January 1963, Khomeini was arrested for
issuing angry pamphlets accusing the Shah of violating
Islam's precepts by the nationalization measures, Islam
guarantees the sanctity of private property, Khomeini
argued.

Though Khomeini was acting clearly on behalf of the
landlords and the British, his cult followers took to the

SAVAK'S INSANE AYATOLLAH

89

streets. Clumsy arrests of Khomeini partisans by the
police and the Savak — which may have been seeking a
provocation and probably was working in collaboration
with Khomeini and Bakhtiar— fueled the protests even
more. During the religious holidays of that year, Kho-
meini's movement grew into an all-out rebellion. Por-
traits of Khomeini stared down from the bazaars and the
mosques. In early June 1963, he was arrested by the
police for the first time, then released two months later
after an "understanding" was reached. He was arrested
twice again, in October 1963 and in May 1964. In
October 1964 he was finally sent into exile by the Shah.

Meanwhile, General Bakhtiar had quietly moved
from his Swiss headquarters to Iraq, where he operated
secretly in Baghdad. British influence in Iraq was then
particularly strong, and General Bakhtiar cooperated
closely with the British embassy in Teheran to fuel the
anti-Shah riots and support the Khomeini movement.
Over 5,000 people were killed in two years of violent
demonstrations.

The Shah minced no words concerning his opposi-
tion: "We are done with social and political parasites,"
he said. "I abhor black reaction even more than red
destruction/'

Hinting at the connections of the rebels to Britain,
the Shah declared, "The agents of foreign influence in
Iran were the politicians, the feudal lords . . . some self-
styled religious leaders who ever since the establishment
of the constitutional monarchy were generally known

to be at the beck and call of one foreign power in par-
ticular/'

When he was exiled, Khomeini' s choice of refuges
revealed whose "black reaction" it was. He fled first to
Izmir, Turkey, site of the NATO installation, where he

90

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

stayed for a period; he then traveled to Baghdad, Iraq,
where he contacted the networks around General
Bakhtiar.

Together, Khomeini, Bakhtiar, and British intelli-
gence continued to stir up trouble in Iran. During the
rest of the 1960s Bakhtiar was involved in several con-
spiracies, including the 1965 assassination of Prime Min-
ister Ali Mansour and a botched assassination attempt

against the Shah.

Traveling between Geneva, Paris, Rome, Beirut, and
Baghdad, Bakhtiar built up his connections throughout
the Mediterranean world. One of his closest associates
was Francois Porteau de la Morandiere, a member of the
extremist Secret Army Organization that was responsible
for the repeated assassination attempts against French
President Charles de Gaulle. Bakhtiar also strengthened
his links to the underworld, procuring his funds through
drug smuggling and gun running.

In 1970, in August, he was killed in what was said to
be a hunting accident in the hills of Iraq near the Iranian
border. There is little question that he was assassinated
on orders from the Shah. Later that year, Iran announced
the discovery of a plot to overthrow the government led
by partisans of General Bakhtiar, and hundreds of mili-
tary men were arrested.

For ^Khomeini, now a lonely mullah in Iraq, his chief

sponsor and patron was dead.

Khomeini's return to Iran on February 1, 1979, marked
the end of a years' long British campaign to destabilize
Iran. Not for a moment during his exile was Khomeini
out of the control of the British intelligence service.

SAVAK'S INSANE AYATOLLAH

91

With the coming to power in 1968 of the Iraqi
government of the Arab Baath Socialist Party, Khomeini
was kept under a careful watch by the Iraqi authorities,
who did not want him stirring up trouble among the
very large Shiite community of Iraq. In the mid-1970s,
he was found lending his support to the rebellion of
Iraq's Kurdish tribes in the north. But because of his
status as a religious leader, the Iraqis believed it impos-
sible to arrest "him.

Today Khomeini is a character out of a Kipling novel.
According to those who have known him, he is a veg-
etable, and is said to sleep up to twenty-two hours a day,
awaking only for a dazed excursion into the real world
for a few hours. He is rarely rational. His son Ahmad
Khomeini told Le Figaro magazine that his father is
usually "in another world" and that he "doesn't pay
attention anymore to what is happening around him."

Khomeini resembles nothing so much as the fictional
Wizard of Oz, a puffed-up puppet whose controls are
operated from behind the scenes. For the most part, his
declarations and pompous pronouncements are state-
ments issued in his name, or statements written for him
by his intimate circle of advisers.

But Iranian politics today is dependent on the symbol
of Khomeini and on his authority as the "imam," and
Iran's battling political factions must win the approval of
the drooling ayatollah for any major decision. No sooner
has one faction of Khomeini's advisers spent time coax-
ing the senile fool into adopting some position concern-
ing an issue of importance than they leave and in comes
another coterie, prepared to persuade His Eminence of
the opposite point of view. By manipulating the aged
man, Iran's factions wield life or death power over their

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

rivals. Reasoned argument, of course, does not work with
Khomeini; more useful is an argument that is based on
accusing one's opponents of anti-Islamic behavior or

"warring against God."

Hence, political decisions in Iran over the period
since the revolution are always subject to instant reversal.
President Bani-Sadr has several times lined up the
imam's support for some policy or initiative, only to find
a day or two later that Khomeini has reversed position
and sided with the more extreme, fundamentalist faction
around Ayatollah Khalkhali.

There is another reason for this. Many people believe
that the depraved Khalkhali is, in effect, Khomeini's
boss, since Khalkhali is the head of the feared Fedayeen-
e Islam. According to French sources, Khomeini himself
is a member of the Fedayeen and is therefore subject to
organizational discipline under Khalkhali.

The Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali is a mystery man in
Iran. He holds no official position in the government,
but he wields enormous power. In the first months after
the revolution, it was Khalkhali who served as the
unofficial judge and executioner for hundreds, probably
thousands, of political prisoners. His sadistic tempera-
ment and lust for blood earned him the nickname
"Judge Blood." He is a certified lunatic, and spent a
number of years in a mental asylum for torturing and
killing small animals, such as cats and birds. Wags have
called him Ayatollah Khatkhiller.

More recently, Khalkhali has served as the head of
Iran s antidrug program, a sick joke given the fact the
Fedayeen is probably the biggest drug-smuggling ring
in Iran. From this position, he has used his authority to
order hundreds more executions of people condemned to

SAVAK'S INSANE AYATOLLAH

93

death allegedly as drug traffickers — but, in fact, guilty
only of political opposition to Khomeini's rule.

Following the raid into Iran by U.S. forces last April
24, Khalkhali gained notoriety for displaying the dead
bodies of American servicemen killed in the action,
including holding up charred pieces of flesh and bone.

Now, he is said to live inside the depths of Qasr
Prison outside Teheran, location for most of the secret
trials and brutal, machine-gun executions of Khomeini's
enemies. Like a sewer rat, he scuttles through the
dungeons, gleefully clapping his hands at this or that
little irony of his task. Once, during a macabre guided
tour of the prison for reporters, Khalkhali delivered his
lecture in between eating mouthfuls of vanilla ice cream
from a gallon tub that he carried with him. At the end of
the tour, when several reporters' questions angered him,
he threatened to have them all executed right then and
there. The reporters hastily departed.

For many, it may be hard to understand how a nation
could allow itself to be ruled by such madmen. Khomeini
and Khalkhali are truly insane. But the conditions of
their rule must be understood.

Millions of Iranians, especially those of the middle
class, have fled the country rather than endure the
regime's horrors; according to U.S. government esti-
mates, up to six million people may have left Iran since
1978. Those that remain live under the gun of the
Revolutionary Guard and the komitehs, or Revolutionary
Committees.

At the beginning, because many Iranians chafed
under the Shah's one-man rule, they naively thought

94

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

that by supporting Khomeini's movement they could rid
themselves of the monarchy, and then dispense with
Khomeini. Such was not to be the case. With the passing
of time, most of Khomeini's support has dissipated,
leaving only the cult followers of the Muslim Brother-
hood. It is that section of Iran's population upon which
Khomeini's rule now rests exclusively, and the insane
mind of the mullah is perfectly matched to its consti-
tuency.

In any developing country, the ruler — if he is even
remotely concerned with his country's welfare — is faced
with the fundamental problem: how to end the misery
and backwardness of the rural peasants and their don-
keylike life. The peasant existence has been entrenched
in that mode of day-to-day life for many centuries, and
the mind of the peasant — uneducated and unaware of
the world outside — is locked at a level not much higher
than his beasts of burden. Such a population is desper-
ately in need of an education program, to enable it to
become capable of assimilating modern technology.
Without that, without the beginnings of progress making
itself felt on the mind of the peasant, he is condemned to
a hell more horrible than anything described in Dante's
Inferno.

The life of rural idiocy makes the peasant population
vulnerable to manipulation or bribery that molds it into
a "popular rebellion/* So with Khomeini: his chief
supporters were not the skilled workers of Iran, nor the
middle class, but the millions of displaced peasants with
little education who had streamed into Iran's cities and
eked out an existence in the shantytowns and the slums
of southern Teheran.

In the Middle East, for fifty centuries such popula-

SAVAK'S INSANE AYATOLLAH

95

tions have been reduced to dependency on the priest-
hood, going back to the days when the cults of the
ancient world dominated political life. Often described
as "magicians" or sorcerers, cult priests have used the
tricks of psychology and superstition to weave a mystical
web of enchantment around their followers. Their tech-
niques include the use of psychosexual fears, fantasies,
and drugs. So with Khomeini. If one could truly enter
into the mind of a mullah like Khomeini or Khalkhali,
perhaps then one would fully comprehend the pure evil
that is represented there.

Recently, translated into English, there has appeared
a book in which Khomeini's proclamations have been
gathered into one place from several of his works. The
book s maxims appear incredible and even laughable to
us, but one must consider them from the vantage point
of their intended audience. For these pathetic people,
troubled not by concerns of politics, business, law, or
even more simple problems such as which television
program to watch, Khomeini's word is law. Their con-
cerns arise out of an unfathomable depth of backward-
ness verging on the insane, rooted in superstition.

' There are eleven things which are impure/' Kho-
meini declares. " Urine, excrement, sperm, bones, blood,
dogs, pigs, non-Muslim men and women, wine, beer,
and the sweat of the excrement-eating camel." He adds,
"Wine and all other intoxicating beverages are impure,
but opium and hashish are not/'

Says Khomeini; "It is forbidden to consume the
excrement of animals or their nasal secretions. But if
such are mixed in minute proportions into other foods
their consumption is not forbidden. The meat of horses,
mules, or donkeys is not recommended. It is strictly

96

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

forbidden if the animal was sodomized while alive bv a

man. In that case, the animal must be taken outside the
city and sold.

"If one commits an act of sodomy with a cow, a ewe,
or a camel, their urine and their excrements become
impure, and even their milk may no longer be consumed.
The animal must quickly be killed and the price of it
paid to its owner by him who sodomized it," says
Khomeini.

Khomeini himself is reported by many sources to be
a practicing homosexual, which is not uncommon — is
even the rule — among the mullahs. During his years in
exile, especially in Paris, his sexual partner was said to be
Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, Iran's foreign minister. Ghotbza-
deh reportedly is a notorious homosexual-sadist, like

Khalkhali, and the fact that he is not married has long

been the subject of jokes among Iranians. Given this
background, Khomeini prescribes in great detail on the
sexual habits of his followers:

"During the time a woman is menstruating, it is
preferable for a man to avoid coitus, even if it does not
involve full penetration — that is, as far as the circumci-
sion ring — and even if it does not involve ejaculation. It
is also highly inadvisable for him to sodomize her during
this time."

Other superstitions are covered by Khomeini:

" N amaze-ay at is the name given to the prayer to be

said when one witnesses natural phenomena that inspire
fear. This prayer is required in the four following cases:
total or partial eclipse of the sun; total or partial eclipse
of the moon; earthquake, even though it not be fear-
some; and thunder, lightning, and black or red winds. If
several of these phenomena occur simultaneously, for

SAVAK'S INSANE AYATOLLAH

97

instance, if an eclipse should be accompanied by an
earthquake, two prayers are required. In case of earth-
quake or lightning or thunder, one must pray immedi-
ately; failing to do so is a sin which is not pardoned until
after this prayer is said, no matter how much later, even
to the last day of a person's life."

Endless rules and regulations are put forward by
the ayatollah concerning when and how to pray, to eat,
to drink, to go to the bathroom. "When defecating or
urinating, one must squat in such a way as neither to
face Mecca nor to turn one's back upon it," he says. On
prayer: "If a person who is praying turns red in the face
from suppressing an impulse to burst out laughing, that
person must start the prayer over again. . . . Clapping
one's hands or jumping up in the air during a prayer
makes it null and void." And so forth.

Khomeini's insane version of Islam has made him the
subject of ridicule among other Muslims, both Sunni and
Shia. Many of the highest authorities in the Muslim
world, among the ulema (clergy) in particular, condemn
him as a heretic for, among other reasons— probably the
most sacrilegious thing that a Muslim could say — claim-
ing that he himself is more powerful than the Prophet
Mohammed. Many Shia resent the fact that Khomeini
has usurped the title of the ' imam, for that title is an
extremely solemn one for those of the Shiite faith. Many
even argue that Khomeini cannot even legitimately be
called an "ayatollah."

How long will the world continue to be plagued with
the mad ayatollah? Of course, he is very old, and he has
had several heart attacks. Many Iranians expect him to
die quite soon, and there are a number of political power
centers that would like him dead immediately — even if

98

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

not by strictly natural causes. One thing is certain: when
Khomeini dies, there is no one that can replace him. He
is the unique focus of his cult following in Iran. When
he dies he leaves a profound vacuum of power.

The most likely result will be the eruption of a civil

war in Iran, in which the two most powerful forces will
be the Communists, especially strong in the north of
Iran, and the conservative opposition to Khomeini, in-
cluding the military and some of the tribes such as the
Kurds; joining the latter will probably be many of the
more moderate religious leaders who presently are
held hostage to Khomeini s lunacy, such as Ayatollah
Shareatmadari.

For thousands of Iranians, whatever the outcome,
Khomeini's death cannot come too soon.

Muslim Brotherhood I:

Britain's Plot
Against Islam

A / e have nothing against going to the moon, or
V V setting up atomic installations," says Kho-
meini in his Green Book, "But we too have a mission to
accomplish: the mission of serving Islam and making its
sacred principles known to the entire world, in the hope
that all the monarchs and presidents of republics
throughout the Muslim world will finally recognize that
our cause is just, and by that very fact become submissive
to us. Naturally, we have no desire to strip them of their
functions; we will allow them to retain power, provided
they show themselves to be obedient and worthy of our
confidence/*

Who is this "we" that Khomeini says the heads of
state of all Muslim nations must become subservient to?
The ayatollah has let slip where his true allegiance lies
not to Islam, but to the secret society known as the

99

100

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Muslim Brotherhood — the "we" who "have a mission to
accomplish."

The Muslim Brotherhood is a London creation,
forged as the standard-bearer of an ancient, antireligious
(pagan) heresy that has plagued Islam since the estab-
lishment of the Islamic community (umma) by the
Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century. Represent-
ing organized Islamic fundamentalism, the organization
called the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimun in
Arabic) was officially founded in Egypt, in 1929, by the
British agent Hasan al-Banna, a Sufi mystic. Today, the
Muslim Brotherhood is the umbrella under which a host
of fundamentalist Sufi, Sunni, and radical Shiite broth-
erhoods and societies flourish.

The real story of the Muslim Brotherhood is more
fantastic than the mere imagination of the authors of
espionage novels could create. It functions as a conspir-
acy; its members exchange coded greetings and secret
passwords; although no formal membership list exists, its
members are organized into hierarchical cells or
"lodges" like the European freemason societies and
orders. The Muslim Brotherhood does not respect na-
tional frontiers; it spans the entire Islamic world. Some
of its members are government officials, diplomats, and
military men; others are street gangsters and fanatics.
While the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are at
home in plush-carpeted paneled board rooms of top
financial institutions, at the lower levels the Muslim
Brotherhood is a paramilitary army of thugs and assas-
sins.

At its highest level, the Muslim Brotherhood is not
Muslim. Nor is it Christian, Jewish, or part of any
religion. In the innermost council are men who change

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

101

their religion as easily as other men might change their
shirts,

Taken together, the generic Muslim Brotherhood
does not belong to Islam, but to the pre-Islamic barbar-
ian cults of mother-goddess worship that prevailed in
ancient Arabia. As much as the peddlers of mythology
might want us to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood
and Ayatollah Khomeini represent a legitimate expres-
sion of a deeply rooted "sociological phenomenon," it is
not the case. Nor does the Muslim Brotherhood represent
more than a tiny fraction of the world's Muslim be-
lievers.

The Muslim Brotherhood could not exist today were
it not for the fact that the more backward elements of
Muslim culture were observed, taken note of, and then
carefully cultivated by Orientalists of the British Oxford
and Cambridge universities. The Ikhwan is the result of
the patient organizing by London's agents in the Islamic
world, men such as the famous T. E. Lawrence ("of
Arabia"), Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, E. G. Browne, Harry
St.-J. B. Philby, Arnold Toynbee, and Bertrand Russell.

For Americans, British sponsorship of the Muslim
Brotherhood should not be surprising. The policy of the
British Empire was to maintain London's colonies in a
state of underdevelopment. In the Middle East, the
British have always sought out the corrupt tribal leaders
and the venal clergy to lead movements whose objectives
have always seemed to coincide with British objectives.
With the Muslim Brotherhood, British imperial policy
was institutionalized in the form of a disciplined organi-
zation dedicated to returning the Middle East to the
Dark Ages.

The cultivation of backwardness by an established

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

oligarchy is nothing new. Within Islamic history, the
great proponents of antiscientific doctrines, mysticism,
and nominalism — such as the ninth-century Al-Ashari
and the eleventh-century Al-Ghazali — were paid agents
for the aristocrats of the caliphate and later kingdoms,
who sought to disorganize the emerging rationalist tend-
ency and its later magnificent expression in the work of
the humanist geniuses Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Hasan

ibn al-Sabbah. The irrationalist tendency within Islam
was revived, in the nineteenth century and afterward, by

the British. It was the British who sponsored the higher
education system in the Muslim world; the British who

funded the publication of Islam's obscurantists; and the

British who held learned conferences to proclaim the
worth of a specifically "non-Western" brand of "Muslim
science/' The British goal was to convince the Muslim
world that its "true" culture was backwardness and
irrationality. Important in this process was a century-
long British project to explain the decline of Islam:
according to the London view, the collapse of the great
Muslim empires and their eventual domination by the

imperialist powers was the result of an inherent weak-
ness, or defect, within the "Muslim psyche.' 1

In this chapter, we will uncover the roots of the
Muslim Brotherhood. We will take a look at its precedent
organizations in the Middle Ages, and we will see how
the British Orientalists used their knowledge of these
early movements and cults to eventually found the
organization that stands behind the Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Islamic revolution of the early seventh century was
the accomplishment of a single man, the Prophet Mo-
hammed, one of the greatest political and religious

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

103

leaders in history. In a few short decades, Mohammed
singlehandedly established in Arabia an empire that
within eighty years stretched from southern France and
Spain through North Africa and Asia to the borders of
China.

The enemy of early Christianity had been the pagan
cults of the Roman Empire, who, failing to destroy the
religion from without, attempted to pervert it from
within, The enemy of Mohammed's Islam was the pre-
Islamic mother cults that remained, in disguise, buried
within the Muslim environment, supplying the roots for
what would become the Muslim Brotherhood.

The key to Mohammed's achievement was his ability
to establish his authority as a teacher to the worldly
merchants of Arabia and to the nomadic Bedouin tribes-
men alike. Pagan, pre-Islamic Arabia existed in a state of
near psychosis. The Bedouins, and even the settled Arabs
and traders, lived in a terrifying world of demons and
jinn Cgenies"), representing the fearful, personified
natural phenomena that dominated the desert. Gnomes
and "earth-spirits" inhabited trees and rocks, which
became the objects of cult worship. Often a special stone
called a masseba, was erected for cult worship. Tribal
chieftains and their priests in the larger towns encour-
aged such nonsensical beliefs as the bulwarks of their
authority over the terrorized, superstitious population.

Throughout the Middle East, including Arabia, there
flourished the worship of insidious female goddesses,
overpowering mother-figures who became the object of
neurotic devotion. All of these goddesses descended from
the Great Mother cults of the Roman Empire era, such
as Isis, Artemis, Aphrodite, and Cybele. In Arabia, the
chief mother goddess — represented by a stone — was
Allat. She was all-powerful, especially among the oli-

104

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

garchical merchant elite of the city of Mecca in western
Arabia, and she squatted smilingly over her herd of
Bedouin followers, the infantile masses.

Mohammed's revolution not only overthrew the
Meccan oligarchy and its goddesses; it revolutionized
culture and science. The primary commitment of Mo-
hammed was to the most rapid possible uplifting of the
souls of the Arabian population out of their misery and
backwardness. He had a mission for them — but first they
must learn to read and write, to wage modern war, and
to assimilate all the learning of human history for
application in rebuilding society.

The Koran, the holy book of Islam, demanded that
the Muslims read:

Recite! In the name of the lord who created,
Who created men fom clotted blood.
Recite! Your lord is the most beneficent,
Who taught by the pen,

Taught to men what they did not know.

That was the battle cry of Islam. Until that time, written
Arabic did not really even exist. Through the circulation
of the Koran, an entire section of the world was taught
to read and to use the written word.

The message of the Koran was a message of Perfec-
tion. Mohammed preached that God has an unshakeable
plan for the salvation of mankind. In the Koran, Mo-
hammed makes frequent reference to the destruction of
past civilizations, whose bare columns and crumbling
ruins could be seen strewn throughout the Near East.
Profoundly moved by the collapse of previously great
civilizations, Mohammed sought to build an empire that
would endure forever, in the realm of ideas. His ideas
were incorporated in the famous Constitution of Medina,

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

105

whose principles included a condemnation of slavery, an
attack on the prevalent practice of infanticide, the
abolition of usury, the advocacy of a patrilinear rather
than a matrilinear society, and rules for commerce and
business.

Armed with the Koran, Mohammed's followers es-
tablished a worldwide empire. For the first time since
Alexander the Great, the power of the reactionary feudal
Persian oligarchy had been broken. The Mediterranean
world was united with central Asia to form an immense,
unprecedented common market. The artificial trade
barriers that had divided Persia from Byzantium came to
an end. Trade flourished, cities grew, and in the next
200 years astonishing scientific and technological break-
throughs were made in agricultural techniques, metals,
engineering, and energy technology, beginning with the
windmill and the water wheel.

From the start, the new Arab empire drew on every
possible source for the scientific and cultural knowledge
of the known world. As early as 720 A.D. — and especially
under the Golden Age of Caliph Harun al-Rashid and
Caliph Mamun until 833 A.D., missions were sent to
Athens and Constantinople to secure Greek works that
were then quickly translated into Arabic. Learned as-
tronomers of Persia and Egypt were sponsored in new
discoveries and record-keeping. Christian physicians be-
gan inquiries into the working of the human body and
mind. Mathematical science from India and the East
flowed into the Muslim world through a dozen different
channels, and the civilization of northwest India, long a
center of humanism and science, contributed mightily to
the Persian renaissance sparked by the merchant Bar-
makid family of Merv, under the influence of Islam,

All of this came together to establish the great

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Abbasid Empire that founded the city of Baghdad in
754. Baghdad was constructed to be the "perfect city"
by the universalizing Islamic reformers of the Abbasid
movement.

But even before the decline of the Abbasid Empire,
the cultish undercurrent of pre-Islamic Arabia persisted.
Its patrons were the great merchant oligarchy of Mecca,
under the Abu Sofian family and others, who — although
they formally surrendered to Mohammed's Islam — never
accepted the Koran's tenets. They were the "Muslims who
are not Muslims." Covertly, they maintained an alliance
against Islam with the Byzantine priesthood, its officials in
Egypt and Syria, and the Manichean cult of Persia.

Before the rise of Islam, the Abu Sofian family had
sponsored the cult worship of the Meccan goddess Allat.
With the decline of the Abbasid Empire, this faction's
descendants launched a persecution to stamp out all
toleration for new ideas, for science, and for national
inquiry. The Caliph Mutawakkil, a puppet caliph in-
stalled by the military, summoned a committee of ultra-
conservative legal scholars to draft a program for a
stifling brand of " orthodoxy. " All of a sudden, dozens of
schools and scientific centers were shut down, as funda-
mentalist preachers crisscrossed the empire to stifle all
freedom of thought.

Mutawakkil led mass uprisings, not unlike those of
the Ayatollah Khomeini s followers, against the rational-
ist movement of Islam. Raging Bedouins plundered
Christian monasteries, Jews and Christians were mass
murdered to placate the "orthodox" fanatics, along with
many Muslims suddenly condemned for "unorthodox"
beliefs. In less than fifty years, the civilization that had

taken 200 years to construct was gutted and destroyed,

BRITAIN'S PLOT ACAINST ISLAM

107

leaving only a few pockets of learning and free inquiry.
The evil priesthood-oligarchy alliance had managed to
smash one of humanity's treasures.

The man who bears the greatest responsibility for the
destruction of education and science in the latter half of
the ninth century was Abu al-Hasan Ali bin Ismail al-
Ashari. Al-Ashari, the founder of the so-called Asharite
school of orthodoxy in Islam, argued that God deter-
mines all actions and events arbitrarily. Fire does not
burn, he said. God simply causes things to burn when
placed in fire. Mohammed's God of Reason was replaced
with a capricious, insane god reminiscent of the cult

goddesses overthrown by the Prophet Mohammed cen-
turies earlier.

Al-Ashari's maxim was: "God is free to do good or

evil as he chooses."

"Destroy, destroy, destroy. There cannot be destruction
enough/' the Ayatollah Khomeini told the people of Iran
in August 1980. It is an order that goes back to the
eleventh-century leveler of the Islamic Renaissance — Al-
Ghazali — whose most famous work was called, literally,
Destruction.

More than any other Muslim philosopher or theolo-
gian, the nineteenth-century British Islam specialists
studied the work of Al-Ghazali — to use it in creating the

The humanist tradition in Islam did not disappear with the
ninth-century victory of the Asharite heresy, however. The
tradition of Islamic science and philosophy has been dealt with
extensively in the work of Criton Zoakos, editor-in-chief of the
Executive Intelligence Review, in that magazine and in The
Campaigner journal.

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

desired "cult of backwardness" that became the Muslim

^

Brotherhood. Like Al-Ashari, Al-Ghazali argued that the
world is essentially irrational, and that human reason
cannot be applied to understand the universe and shape

its development. In his most famous work Tahafut al-
Falasifah (The Destruction of the Philosophers), Al-
Ghazali pictured God not as a positive creative force
accessible to humanity, but as a remote, arbitrary master.
Al-Ghazali is known for his theory of atoms, according to
which the universe is composed of an infinite number of
discrete particles, each of which, said Al-Ghazali, owes
its minute-to-minute existence to the whim of Al-
Ghazali' s god, who constantly created, destroyed, and
then recreated — at every moment — each atom in the
entire universe.

In such a universe, governed by no permanence or
cause, man's reason is useless; the intellect becomes a
dangerous faculty. For Al-Ghazali, as for Aristotle, man
is or must be made to be a creature of sense-perception
alone, a beastlike, grasping infantile creature incapable
of divine reason. In the introduction to his Destruction,
Al-Ghazali scorns the philosophers and compares them
unfavorably to the "unsophisticated masses ':

"Now I have observed that there is a class of men
who believe in their superiority to others because of their
greater intelligence and insight. . . . Such a scandalous
attitude is never taken by the unsophisticated masses of
men, for they have an instinctive aversion to following
the example of misguided genius. Surely, their simplicity
is nearer to salvation than sterile genius can be. For total

blindness is less dangerous than oblique vision.

"Thus, when I saw this vein of folly pulsating among

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM 109

these idiots, I decided to write this book in order to
refute the ancient philosophers. It will expose the inco-
herence of their beliefs and the inconsistency of their
metaphysical theories/'

Between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, the
work of Al-Ghazali spread like a foul plague infecting
Islam's cities. The vast majority of the Muslim humanist
movement was crushed by the tide of reaction and
orthodox theology. This is the period that is generally
referred to as the "decline of Islamic civilization."

The political-religious base for Al-Ghazali s move-
ment, which took his heresy to every corner of the
Muslim world, was the Sufi movement. The Sufis were a
loosely organized federation of anti-urban, mystical cul-
tists that were hammered into a powerful force in the
years after the destroyer's death. The kinship between
Al-Ghazali and the Sufis is even etymological: The word
sufi is derived from the Arabic suf, which means "wool,"
while the name Al-Ghazali means "the spinner," or one
who works with wool.

Even Sufis will admit that Sufism dates back to pre-
Islamic times. According to Professor Margaret Smith of
Cambridge University, in her The Way of the Mystics:
The Early Christian Mystics and the Rise of the Sufis,
published in 1978 by Oxford University Press, there is a
"relationship between the rise and development of a
mystical element in Islam — that which we know as
Sufism — and the mysticism which was already to be
found within the Christian Church of the Near and
Middle East at the time when the Arab power estab-
lished itself." Professor Smith, until her death a British
cult specialist, explains that Sufism is the heir not only of

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Christian mysticism or "the true Gnostic," but also of
the "mystery-cults of the Greeks/'

Other scholars have shown conclusively that Chris-
tian gnosticism — as a cult heresy within the early
Church — is itself derived from the Oriental cults and
mystery religions of the ancient East. The definitive

work on this subject is The Gnostic Religion by Hans

Jonas, who proves that the Oriental cults that later
emerged as the gnostic movement "compounded every-
thing — oriental mythologies, astrological doctrines 5 Ira-
nian theology, elements of the Jewish tradition, whether
Biblical, rabbinical, or occult, Christian salvation-
eschatology, and Platonic terms and constructs.' ' It is
this eclectic religious tradition embodied in gnosticism
that, after the rise of Islam, was born again as Sufism.
The goddess Allat and her cult followers of Mecca were
the transmission belt for these ancient Eastern heresies.

Yet modern Sufis like to pride themselves on Sufisms
indefinable nature. In The Sufis, Sufi scholar Idris Shah,
writes: "According to one Persian scholar, Sufism is a
Christian aberration. A professor at Oxford thinks that it
is influenced by the Hindu Vedanta. An Arab-American
professor speaks of it as a reaction against intellectualism
in Islam. A professor of Semitic literature claims traces
of central Asian Shamanism. A German will have us find
in it Christianity plus Buddhism. Two very great English
Orientalists put their money on a strong Neoplatonic
influence; yet, one of them will concede that it was
perhaps independently generated. ..." And so on.

How does Idris Shah define Sufism? "A Sufi is a
Sufi."

But then Idris Shah cites Ishan Naiser, another Sufi,
to define the cult: "I am the pagan; I worship at the
altar of the Jew; I am the idol of the Yemenite, the actual

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

111

temple of the fire- worshippers; the priest of the Magian;
the inner reality of the cross-legged Brahmin meditating;
the brush and color of the artist; the suppressed, power-
ful personality of the scoffer. . . . When a flame is thrown
into another flame, they join at the point of flameness/ "
Idris Shah, now a resident in London where he works
with the Muslim Brotherhood, epitomizes the Sufi cult
in its modern form. Passing himself off as a scholar of
Sufism and the Islamic religion, he is the author of
several rather queer works, including the famous Booh
of the Book, a 250-page volume of blank pages that
contains a mystical "message." The book, like the mod-
ern cult, is a fraud.

Upon the death of Al-Ghazali, the Sufi mystic Ibn al-
Arabi became the official father of Islamic mysticism
from the twelfth century onward. The object of Sufism,
according to Ibn al-Arabi, is to find the "intermediate
world" in which direct communication between man
and God is possible. This, Ibn al-Arabi said, is the "world
of the imagination." In the Sufi view, this world of
dreams and fantasies is described as "illumination." It is
often reached with the aid of hallucinogenic drugs that
can induce the "heavenly vision."

Like some oriental cults such as Zen Buddhism, the
Sufis believe in seeking a merger between man's con-
sciousness and God's. These ecstatic movements have
given rise over the years to the many transcendental
orders of mystics and dervishes, many of whom are still
in existence today. Among the chief ones are the Qadiri,
the Naqshbandi, and the Suhrawardi. In the Sufi tradi-
tion, any important leader of a group de facto creates his
own sub-order, leading to a constant proliferation of Sufi
orders.

Over the centuries and still today, Sufism is devoted

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

to the worship of the grave and death. Tombs and burial
sites are shrines for followers of Sufism. Many of the Sufi
traditions, as holdovers from pre-Islamic times, have
introduced pagan rites and rituals into the quasi-Islamic
ceremonies of the Sufis. Witchcraft and other such devil
worship and mother-goddess worship are common in
Sufi circles, though disguised, along with magic and
incantations.

It is the Sufi heresy that became the vehicle for the
penetration of British imperialism into the Middle East.

Beginning as early as the seventeenth century, the
British aristocracy had established numbers of centers
for political intelligence on the Muslim world. With the
gradual expansion of the British Empire through the
East India Company and the Levant Company, the
British found themselves in regular contact with the
Muslim populations of the Near East and India.

To the British, Muslim tendencies that fostered the
growth of natural science omthat encouraged powerful
monarchies within the Islamic world were potential
danger to the Empire. To ensure London's domination
of the "subject races,'* the British imperial strategists
sought out currents within the Muslim world that co-
hered with the British interest in preventing progress.
Rather than deal with kings and princes who ruled over
wide areas, the British also encouraged the power of
hundreds of tribal and ethnic groups, each to rule over a
small mini-state. In this way, the British would more
easily prevent the emergence of political opposition to
their rule. The American Revolution was enough, the

British believed.

Tightly organized but divided along tribal and other
-lines, the Sufis were the perfect partner for the British

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

113

colonialists. Because of their antipathy to science, the
Sufis would not present difficult demands for the spread
of industrial revolution to India and the Middle East;
they would be content to be cotton growers, tea pickers,
and so forth. Having determined how useful Sufi mysti-
cism could be, the British encouraged its spread and
funded missionary and proselytizing campaigns by Sufi
preachers.

From the alliance with Sufism during the eighteenth
century, it was only a short step during the nineteenth
century for the British to sponsor the creation of cults
and pseudo-religions as a tool of Empire policy. Having
carefully studied the Roman Empire as their model, the
British had concluded that one of the chief reasons the
Roman oligarchy had survived for 1,000 years was be-
cause it had learned how to use cults and "religions" to
control its people.

During the 1820s the British oligarchy established
the so-called Oxford Movement, a groundswell of reli-
gious reform fever organized by Oxford University, the

Anglican Church, and Kings College of London Univer-
sity. Their movement created a special kind of British
"missionary/' whose task it was to spread the perverted
gospel of the Oxford Movement into other parts of the
world.

The umbrella for this movement was not a church,
but the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

The missionaries of the Oxford Movement were
assigned to build subsidiary branches of the Scottish Rite
throughout the Empire. When approaching an area like
the Middle East, the Oxford Movement s freemasonic
evangelists would not attempt to convert Muslims, for
instance, to Christianity. Instead, they would try to bring

114

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the Muslim (Sufi) belief system into harmony with the
cult practices of the Scottish Rite. Because of their highly
heterodox, cult beliefs, the Scottish freemasons were
bitterly condemned by the Catholic Church as an anti-
religious conspiracy capable of undercutting the author-
ity of the Pope within the Church.

The Oxford Movement and the British freemasons

had an ally that had also been condemned by the
Vatican: the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits. The Anglo-
Jesuit alliance still stands today as the centerpiece of the
European nobility's dark ages plot.

The chief sponsors of the British cult-building project
during this period were the British royal family itself and
many of its leading prime ministers and aides, such as
Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Palmerston, Lord Shaftesbury,
and Edward Bulwer-Lytton. From the 1820s onward, the
British aristocracy was ruled by a clique of the most
degenerate, sexually perverse, and evil men and women
the world has known. For their model, they took the
image of the monstrous cult center that was Pompeii, in
ancient Rome, where animal worship and bestiality were
the rule of "civilized" behavior.

Bulwer-Lytton, who served as the head of Britain's
Colonial Office and India Office for years and then was
succeeded by his son, was a practicing member of the
ancient cult of Isis and Osiris, a death cult of Egypt
under the late pharaohs that spread its poison throughout
the Mediterranean world in the years before the coming
of Christianity. In his cult novel The Last Days of
Pompeii, Bulwer-Lytton set the foundation for the cults
of future generations. This paragon of the empire-
builder is the grandfather of the Pre-Raphaelite Broth-
erhood of John Ruskin, the 1860s Metaphysical Society

- L

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM 115

S4™

!.

I

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j.-y

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I of Bertrand Russell, the 1880s Ists-Urania Temple of the
Golden Dawn of Aldous Huxley, and the Theosophy
Society of Madame Blavatsky, who published Isis Un-
veiled. Rites of black magic, devil worship, and self-
multilation were a common feature of the British aristoc-
racy during this period. Jack the Ripper was the most
degenerate product of this cult life. His gruesome mur-
ders of whores in London's streets were part of a cult
ritual!

The first recorded project of the nineteenth-century
British cult aristocracy was the movement of the Bahais
in Persia. Although it began as an experimental British
foray in nonreligious, freemasonic cults, the Bahai move-
ment would spawn the organizer of the future pan-
Islamic movement — Jamaleddine Al-Afghani.

The Bahai cult was founded in approximately 1844
by a missionary named Miza Husayn Ali. He called
himself Bahaullah. Today, the Bahais number over
300,000 in Iran alone, although many of them have
quietly fled since the arrival of Khomeini s regime. But
if their largest number is in Iran, the largest Bahai
temple is in Haifa, Israel, and the world headquarters of
the organization is in Wilmette, Illinois.

Bahaiism began as a radical messianic cult in Persia
that claimed to be a new religion and drew on a
mishmash of Muslim, Christian, Zoroastrian, and Jewish
ideas. The Bahais argued that their new doctrine
superseded all other religions in a "one world faith.''
Although they preached love and universal brotherhood,
they quickly found themselves most unwelcome
throughout Persia and the Middle East, for the Bahais
became known as religious fanatics who were willing to
do anything to further the cause of their faith. In 1852,

116

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

117

a Bahai leader was arrested after he tried to assassinate
the Shah of Persia. The Bahais were suppressed in Persia,
and many of their top leaders rounded up and exiled,
first to Baghdad and then to Constantinople.

During this time the Bahai leaders— then including
Bahaullah and his son, Abdul-Baha — maintained close
ties to both the British Scottish Rite and to a proliferation
of branch temples and movements spreading into India,
the Ottoman Empire, Russia, and even Africa. In 1868,
the Turkish government decided that it was too danger-
ous for the Bahais to be allowed to function freely, and
they were placed under house arrest in Acre, in Syria.
But, with their powerful friends in London, the Bahai
clique always managed to surface again.

By the 1890s, the cult was again gathering momen-
tum, especially in Persia. E. G. Browne, a British cult
specialist who studied Persia, went so far as to proclaim
that the Bahais were the wave of the future in the
Mideast. The British administrator in Egypt, Lord Cur-
zon, declared that if they maintained their pace, the *
Bahais might " replace" Islam as the dominant religion
in Persia!

By the first years of the twentieth century, it was
common knowledge that the Bahai was a product of
British inspiration. They were accused by the Turkish
government of trying to establish a pseudotribal "col-
ony" in Syria as a beachhead for the British in the
Ottoman Empire. In 1904 and again in 1907, the Turks
investigated the Bahais, and the investigation's report
recommended that they be banished from the Empire.
Before the sentence could be carried out, however, the
so-called Young Turks — another fifth column of the
Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and the Grand Orient

Lodge — seized power in their revolution. Abdul-Baha
was released from prison.

After his release, the Bahai leader went to London
and New York, where he met the elite of both cities. In
1912, he set out on a speaking tour of the United States
where, according to the official Bahai publications, he
spoke to "university students, socialists, Mormons, Jews,
Christians, agnostics, Esperantists, peace societies, New
Thought clubs, women's suffrage societies," and many
other centers.

In 1918, Abdul-Baha was knighted by the Queen of
England.

Everywhere he went, he preached a single message:
the necessity of abolishing nation-states, existing world
religions, and national borders to melt everything into a
single world order. The Bahai cult took a leading role in
the founding of the World League of Nations, the
forerunner of the United Nations, and his organization
had close ties to the World Federalists. Abdul-Baha' s
daughter married the founder of the so-called Esperanto
language, a project to abolish all tongues and replace
them with one language. The Bahais could also be found
in the middle of the British-led social reform movements.

Today the Bahai cult is hated in Iran, and is consid-
ered correctly to be an arm of the British Crown. During
the destabilization of the Shah in 1978, it was widely
reported that in several instances the Bahai cult secretly
funded the Khomeini Shiite movement. In part, the
money would have flowed through the cult's links to the
same international "human rights" organizations, such
as Amnesty International, that originally sponsored the
anti-Shah movement in Iran. These movements also
derive from the "one world" currents associated with the

■_

118

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Bahais since the early 1900s. (If any Iranians have been
misled on the question of the Bahais by the supposed
antipathy of Khomeini's clique to the Bahais, it should
be noted that the Bahai cultists often deliberately en-
couraged anti-Bahai activities as camouflage.)

"You have made us with your hands, invested our matter
with its perfect form, and created us in the best shape.
Through you we have known the whole universe/' said
a disciple of Al-Afghani, the British agent who organized
the first pan-Islamic fundamentalist movement.

Jamaleddin al-Afghani was born, according to most
accounts, somewhere in central Asia — probably in Ka-
bul, Afghanistan. His early years are now lost in obscu-
rity, although there are some reports that he was born a
Jew and that he very early entered the ranks of one of
the many Sufi brotherhoods that covered that part of

Asia,

Because of the close ties between central Asia and
India, many of the Sufi cults were based in India or
derived from missionaries spreading Sufism out of Indian
Muslim circles. The most important was the Naqshbandi
sect. The name means "enemies of laughter/' The
Naqshbandi sect grew rapidly as a central Asian Sufi
brotherhood at the beginning of the 1700s under Sheikh
Ahmed Sirhindi and then Shah Waliullah of Delhi, his
successor, who lived from 1703 to 1765. Both of these
Sufi mystics arose to preach an ultra-orthodox ideology
and a return to "pure Islam" after the collapse of the
Mogol Empire in India and the decline of Islam in the
East.

Naqshbandi teachers traveled from Central Asia to
Mecca, Cairo, Turkey, and Persia spreading the Sufi

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

119

mystical revival. The son of Shah Waliullah, Shah Abdel-
Aziz, gathered around him a network of disciples includ-
ing the Kurdish Sheikh Khalid al-Baghdadi (1775-1826),
who visited India in 1809. Radiating from Indian centers
where the British Colonial Office ruled, Eastern mysti-
cism engendered a revival of xenophobic, Islamic "pu-
rity" that considered all outside influences as suspect
and evil. Some of the Islamic orders demanded that all
Muslims "safeguard ourselves from the penetration of
Persian traditions and Indian habits." Among the move-
ments that arose during this period were the extremist
Wahhabi movement in the Arabian peninsula and the

North African cult called the "Senussi Brotherhood/'
based in Libya.

From 1857*until his death in 1897, Al-Afghani was
the chief standard-bearer of the fundamentalist move-
ment that embraced the Sufis, the Bahais, and the
freemasons.

Throughout his forty-year career as a British intelli-
gence agent, Al-Afghani was guided by two British
Islamic and cult specialists, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and
Edward G. Browne. E. G. Browne was Britain's leading
Orientalist of the nineteenth century, and could number
among his proteges at Cambridge University's Oriental-
ist department the young Harry St. -John B. Philby, the
British intelligence specialist in the Arabian "peninsula
and father of the MI-6 "triple agent/' Kim Philby.

Like Philby and T. E. Lawrence later, Browne culti-
vated a studied pose as an "anti-imperialist/' who would
loudly voice his criticism of British policies toward its
colonies. He claimed to be sympathetic to the aspirations
of independence movements. A dedicated cultist, he
admitted to to a fascination with Oriental mysticism and
the "sacred mysteries of the East." His specialty was the

120

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

study of Sufism and the Bahai cult, an interest that was
apparently sparked by the work of a fanatical French
Jesuit idologue named Joseph de Gobineau.

Gobineau was a French diplomat who exhibited a
strong love for the British, and it was his work — particu-
larly his book Philosophy in Central Asia — that inspired
the cultist yearnings of such figures as British Prime
Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Gobineau was recruited to
the British SIS in Switzerland and was subsequently
posted to Iran in the French foreign service. There he
spent most of his time in the southern Iranian city of
Shiraz, the city out of which the Bahai cult first emerged.
Gobineau's chief preoccupation was to assemble a work-
ing partnership between the Aryan and Semitic races,
including the allegedly Aryan Persians. (Later, he would
become one of the forefathers of the Nazi movement out
of his advocacy of "race science/ ) Years later, E. G.
Browne described with reverence how he first learned of
Gobineau's work:

"One day some seven years ago I was searching
amongst the books of the University of Cambridge
library for fresh materials for an essay on Sufi philoso-
phy/' wrote Browne, "when my eye caught the title of
Count de Gobineau's work Religion and Philosophy in
Central Asia. I took down the book, glanced through it
to discover whether or not it contained any account of
the Sufis, and finding a short chapter was devoted to
them, brought it back with me to my room. My first
superficial glance had also shown me that a considerable
portion of the book was taken up with an adcount of the
Bahais. . . /'

He continued: "When, however, I turned from this
mournful chapter to that portion of the book dealing

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

121

with the Bahai movement, the case was altogether
different. To anyone who has already read this master-
piece of historical description. ... It is needless to de-
scribe the effect which it produced on me. I had long
ardently wanted to visit Persia and above all Shiraz, and
this desire was now greatly intensified. I now wished to
see it because it was the birthplace of Mirza Ali Mu-

hammed the Bab [founder of the Bahai]/'

In 1887, Browne did visit Persia, and became proba-
bly the world s authority on that country, writing the

classic Persian Revolution and A Year Among the Per-
sians, The man who taught Persian to Browne was Mirza
Mohammed Baqir, one of Al-Afghani's associates in the
Persian cult of the Bahai. Baqir has been described as
"successively a Shiite, a Muhammedan, a dervish, a

Christian, an atheist, and a Jew/' who finished his travels

"by elaborating a religious system of his own which he
called 'Islamo-Christianity/ "

Baqir had been recruited into the inner circle of the
Persian and Central Asian elite that would be the
founding members of the pan-Islamic movement by
Wilfrid S. Blunt, another member of the British Orien-
talist school, who was given the responsibility by the
Scottish Rite of Freemasons to organize the Persian and
and Middle East "lodges." The movement s driving
force would be Al-Afghani.

Al-Afghani's career began in earnest in 1870, when
he took up a position with the Board of Education in
Istanbul, Turkey. Earlier Al-Afghani had been involved
in Central Asian politics and, for a time, had served as
prime minister of Afghanistan in 1866, where he main-
tained ties to the Bahais, the British masons, and certain
Sufis based in India. In 1869, he went to India, and from

122

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

there traveled to Istanbul. During his days in Turkey,
Al-Afghani was intensely disliked by the clergy of the
Muslim establishment there. After but a short time he
was expelled from Turkey for preaching doctrines con-
sidered by the uletna to be hostile to Islam. (Only two
years earlier, the Turkish government had also arrested
the leadership of the Bahai cult. Forced to leave Istanbul,
Afghani went to Cairo, where he remained for nine
years. )

Beginning in 1871 in Cairo, Afghani was sponsored
by none other than Prime Minister Mustafa Riad Pasha,
who had met him in Istanbul, and who made sure that
Afghani was placed on a generous cash stipend and
given a position at the famous Muslim university of Al
Azhar. Chastened by his experience in Istanbul, and
quietly warned by his British patrons not to become too
rambunctious right away, for seven years Afghani main-
tained strict Muslim orthodoxy in his public teaching,
while privately building up a cult following. Finally,
in 1878, Afghani left Al Azhar and moved into the
Jewish Quarter of Cairo, where he began open political
organizing.

Afghani announced the formation of the Arab Ma-
sonic Society. With the help of Riad Pasha and London's
embassy in Cairo, Afghani reorganized the Scottish Rite
and Grand Orient lodges of freemasons in Cairo. He
began to organize around him a web of several Muslim
countries, especially Syria, Turkey, and Persia.

Among his followers, Afghani received almost total
devotion bordering on idolatry. His most prized disciple
was Mohammed Abduh, who, long after Afghani left
Cairo, organized the basis for Hasan al-Banna's Muslim
Brotherhood.

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

123

In his work Treatise of Mystical Inspirations, Abduh

described his encounter with Afghani: "While I found
myself in this state, the arrival of the perfect Sage, of
Truth personified, of our venerated master Sayyid Jamal
ad-Din al-Afghani who does not cease to garner the
fruits of science, made the sun of truths rise for us which
illuminated the most complicated problem." Such lan-
guage — "perfect Sage" and "Truth personified" — is re-
served only for use by Sufi mystics.

While still in Cairo, Afghani was involved in the
founding meetings of several Middle East secret socie-
ties. Addressing Syrian Christians in Alexandria, he
delivered a panegyric on his vision of the future of the
Arab world. The group was reportedly so inspired by
Afghani's sermon that it prevailed upon Syrian and
Egyptian Muslims to form a movement that became
known as "Young Egypt," or Misr al-Fatat. This secret
society, which lasted well into the twentieth century and
still has adherents today, was a proto-Nazi organization
of fanatical Egyptian nationalists long controlled by the
Scottish Rite of Freemasons. Likewise, Afghani was
involved in the creation of another masonic cult,' the so-
called Young Turks, the mystical society that, in 1908,
seized control briefly of the Ottoman Empire. A third
spinoff of Afghani's work in Egypt was the formation of
the Syrian nationalist secret societies. Each one of these
movements was established as a project of the British
SIS.

In 1879, he was expelled from Egypt with an official
state document that accused him of having formed a
"secret society" of "young thugs" to bring the "ruin of
religion and of rule/' But it was too late: in 1882,
Afghani's movement organized the cult rebellion of

124 v

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Arabi in Egypt, which launched an agent provocateur
revolt against the British khedive who had expelled
Afghani. The revolt provided the pretext for the British
armed invasion and occupation of Egypt. In Egypt, at
least, Afghani had been successful!

From Egypt, Afghani visited India briefly and then
went to Europe. With financing from the British in
Egypt, Afghani established a French-language journal
and an Arabic journal in Paris called Al-Urwah al-Wuth-
kah ("The Indissoluble Bond"), which was also the name
of a secret organization he had founded in 1883. The
Indissoluble Bond is the direct forerunner of the Muslim
Brotherhood,

It was the first real pan-Islamic organization. Its
purpose, said Afghani, was "to unite Muslims and arouse
them from the sleep and acquaint them with the dangers
threatening them and guide them to the way of meeting
these dangers.' 7 Among the members of Afghani's Paris
circle there were Egyptians, Indians, Turks, Syrians,
North Africans, as well as many Christians and Jews! A
parallel organization, called Umm al-Kurah was estab-
lished by Afghani s followers in Mecca, but it was
quickly suppressed.

Among the Paris associates in 1884 we find:
Malkam Khan, an Armenian Christian who con-
verted to the Shiite Muslim faith, and who became the
Persian ambassador to London during the 1880s. Mal-
kam Khan's father Yakub Khan was the founder of the
Scottish Rite of Freemasons in Persia and a close associ-
ate of Blunt.

Mirza Muhammed Baqir, another freemason, who
was E. G. Browne's Persian-language instructor, and
who had invented "Islamo-Christianity."

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

125

Reverend Louis Sabunji, a Catholic priest of North
Mesopatamia, who converted to Islam and became the
personal secretary to Wilfrid Blunt.

Adib Ishaq, a Syrian Christian freemason, who was a
writer and a radical anticleric who condemned the Cath-
olic and Maronite clergy of the Middle East in his works.

James Sanua, an Egyptian Jew who taught Afghani
French, who founded a journal dedicated to the principle
that all religions must be subsumed in a single "religion
of humanity."

And many Persian Bahais gathered under Afghani's
umbrella after having been driven out of the Middle
East.

What strikes even the casual observer about this
group is that very few of them were even Muslims, and
virtually every one had a background of involvement in
the "universal religion" movement. They hardly seem to
be the collection of people appropriate to create an pan-
Islamic movement. And Al-Afghani, whose frequent
assertions of his own belief in the "unity of the three
religions" and other cult nonsense of the Bahai variety
were anything but the views of a fanatical Muslim,
hummed a different tune in the pages of Al-Urwah al-
Wuthkah. England, wrote Al-Afghani, cannot hope to
"stifle the voice of the Mahdi (Muslim savior), the most
awesome of all voices since its power is even greater than
the Voice of Holy War, which issues from all Muslim
mouths"

Continued Afghani: "Does England think herself
able to stifle this voice before it makes itself heard in all
the East from Mount Himalaya to Dawlaghir, from north
to south, speaking to the Muslims of Afghanistan, of
Sind and of India, proudly proclaiming the coming of

126

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the Savior whom every son of Islam awaits with such
impatience. El-Mahdi, El-Mahdi, El-Mahdi."

The impact of the Al-Vrwah al-Wnthkah y though
brief in duration, was enormous in its scope. Instantly,

Afghani became the voice of the pan-Islamic movement.
A hundred different cults, previously scattered across the
Muslim world without a leader, began to come together
under one single command. Secret societies flourished
now in Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Persia, and India, not
isolated as before, but conscious in the knowledge that
they were part of a unified movement. And, although
Afghani loudly denounced the British in almost every
breath, he was a consummate agent for the British —
using London as the lightning rod for the various Muslim
extremist cults.

In a letter to Wilfrid Blunt, Malkam Khan described
his method: "I went to Europe and studied there the
religious, social, and political systems of the West. I
learned the spirit of the various sects of Christianity and
the organization of the secret societies and freemasons,
and I conceived a plan which should incorporate the
political wisdom of Europe with the religious wisdom of
Asia. I knew that it was useless to attempt a remodeling
of Persia in European forms and I was determined to
clothe my material reformation in a garb which my
people would understand, the garb of religion." In just
a few years, the "remodeling" of Persia would occur
with an explosion of violence in the 1905 Revolution. It
would be almost an exact replica of the revolution of
1978-1979.

In 1885, Afghani traveled to Russia and then Persia,
where he was asked by the Shah Nasir ad-Din to become
prime minister. Nasir ad-Din had been ruling Persia for

BRITAIN'S PLOT AGAINST ISLAM

127

over forty years, and there is little doubt that he would
not have asked Afghani to become prime minister with-
out prompting from the British. One year later, in 1890,
he ordered Afghani to leave the country. The pan-
Islamic leader fled to London. There, together with
Malkam Khan — who resigned, finally, as Persia's ambas-
sador in London — Afghani organized a political destabil-
ization of Iran beginning in 1891. Afghani and Khan
accused the Shah of persecuting men of religion and
'whipped up Shiite radicalism against the Persian king;
once, to emphasize the "Islamic character" of his move-
ment, Afghani signed his name Sayyed al-Hussaini, to
imply that he himself was descended from the Prophet!
The Shah several times'officially protested to the British
government about Afghani's activities, but the British
said only that they could not control the actions of a
private individual. Finally, in 1895, one of Al-Afghani's
close associates assassinated Shah Nasir ad-Din.

Once, Afghani was explicit about his connections to
the British Empire. During an 1884 visit to London, he
reportedly made an astonishing proposal to the British:
If London would withdraw from the Sudan, where rebels
in the Nile Valley were battling the British occupation,
then Afghani would arrange for a British-sponsored mili-
tary pact with Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan against
Russia!

In 1897, Afghani died. But the movement that he
had founded under the banner of pan-Islamicism did not
die. It would continue to spread like some pestilence
through the next century.

To see how it took root, we must now turn to Egypt —
and the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood.

March, 1980: Zbigniew Rrzezinski on trip to
Pakistan to propose military alliance with Zia
regime.

Treason in the U.S.

Billy Carter learns strategy from official of
Qaddafi regime in Libya, another country
where U.S. embassy was burned in late
1979.

November, 1979: Pakistani army helicopter
hovers over U.S. embassy, burned by
"Islamic fundamentalist" mob with tacit
encouragement of lids government.

US. Navys Office of Naval Research
Intilding in Washington, DC, where
Khomeinis espionage agent Capt. Siavash
Setoudeh maintained off ice complex for
month after hostage seizure,

Washington, DC rug dealership front for
Bahram Nahidian — Savama chief in US.
under Khomeini, controller of Setoudeh and

Treason in the U.S.

The arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the
US., the Muslim Student Association, holds
a national conference in Miami, Ohio in
May 1980. The MSA, run top down by the
Brotherhood from abroad, is financed from
Iran through Bahram Nahidians networks.

I

r

Iran, 1968: Entering nuclear age.
Teheran University Nuclear Center
visited by International Atomic
Energy Agency specialist.

Pol Pot' in Iran

Iran, 1979: above , frenzied
worshippers flagellate
themselves near U.S.
embassy.

Iran, 1980: Khomeinis
social structure — (right)
back to the 12th century
"Destruction" of al-Gliazali.

i Iran, 1980: Heroin addicts
I (left) in Teheran. In one
1 year Iran and Pakistan
surpassed Southeast Asia as
worlds primary source of
opium.

The 'Radical'
Traitors. • . -

Bernard Lewis of Princeton
University, author of design for
breakup of nations of the Middle

East, (near right)

Richard Falk at Princeton; key
pro-Kliomeini organizer in Iran
and U.S. (center right)

Ramsey Clark, Carters link to
Khomeini before and after the
Shah's fall, (far right)

m

o

fa"*

:Et:i-H WW 1

hi I » M «
Hi I i!

m m in mwtm

8 I ** »H MH

. . . and •

'Establishment'

Traitors

US. Air Force Gen. Robert
E. Huyser, NATO emissary
later blamed by many
Iranians for undercutting
the Shah.

CFR member George Ball
( right) coordinated tlie
political side of Huysers
"shift to neutral "

1

i- -V

yr/i

Anthony Blunt, Art Curator

the Queen, visionary of
sacerdota I re vol 1 1 1 km s,
sometime "Soviet spy"

The British Operatives

Blunt s boys: Cambridge
"Apostles" kooks in 1932.

H.A.R. "Kim" Philby,
Blunt s recruit from
Caml?ridge in 2932, now
sliapes Middle East policy
for the KGB.

Historian Arnold Toynbee,
British intelligence
"thinker" behind Blunt,
Philby, et al.

m

mm :

Historic Enemies

Kemal Ataturk. Turkish
Republic s nationalist
founder, in opposition to
whose profound influence
the Muslim Brotherhood
was founded.

Muslim Brotherhood
rounded up in Egypt after
1954 attempt to assassinate
Egyptian President Camel
Abdul Nasser.

Philhys father) on camel in Arabian desert,
1917.

"Islamic fundamentalism" today: U.S.-
trained environmentalist Ibrahim Yazdi
l left ); fanatic Iranian Prime Minister Rajai
(right).

Muslim Brotherhood II:

Headquarters
In Egypt

The well-dressed gentlemen have begun to file into
the meeting room one by one, each taking his seat
and puffing on his pipe or fiddling with his papers
awaiting the rest of the assembly. Outside, the London
air is taking on its first chill: it is October 29, 1918, and
England has been victorious in that unfortunate event
called the Great War. Now, there are other pressing
matters to attend to. The first to enter the room is Lord
Curzon, the ultra-imperalist foreign secretary whose
special knowledge of the Middle East will find useful
employment today; then the aristocratic Robert Cecil,
whose walk reveals that he is conscious of his family's
300- year predominance in English politics; he is quickly
followed by his cousin, Arthur Lord Balfour; South
Africa's minister of defense General Smuts; Edwin Mon-

128

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT 129

tague, the secretary of state for India and the only Jew in
the room; and Mark Sykes, the Foreign Office's Middle
East genius. At the end of the parade is an impressive
delegation from military intelligence.

Lord Curzon speaks first. "What is to be done, I say,
about this deplorable agreement to which the French
seem disposed to adhere most tenaciously?'' he asks.
Curzon is speaking of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which
was agreed upon secretly in 1916 between London and
Paris, according to whose most regrettable provisions
London then agreed to bequeath Syria and Lebanon to
France at the end of the war.

T. E. Lawrence enters the room. Although he is not
an aristocrat, Lawrence is not fazed by the awesome
combination of British nobility assembled there. For
Lawrence has been trained by and for the aristocracy:
classical studies at Oxford University, personal training
in intelligence by Dr. David George Hogarth, author,
archaeologist, Orientalist, and keeper of the Ashmolean
Museum at Oxford. That was many years ago; since the
war D. G. Hogarth had been named to head the presti-
gious Arab Bureau of British Military Intelligence in
Cairo, where he took Lawrence under his wing. Now,
Lawrence had come from Cairo to explain to the assem-
bled gentlemen his strategy for dealing with the French.

Lawrence, thinks Curzon, is an amateur. Cecil, Cur-
zon, and the rest have already decided to appoint Arnold
Toynbee to head the special task force to oversee British
dismantling of the Ottoman Empire. But right now the
French business presents a more pressing puzzle. Work-
ing alongside Toynbee will be Winston Churchill, who,
Curzon thinks to himself with a bit of annoyance, seems

130

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

to have made the Middle East almost his personal
fiefdom. As for Lawrence "of Arabia/' he may have
been the best field intelligence officer in Britain's secret
service these past several years, but he is still a field man.
Yet, thinks Curzon, what the man is saying makes sense.
Lord Cromer of Egypt and E. G. Browne would be
pleased.

"If the Sultan of Turkey were to disappear," T, E,
was saying, "then the Caliphate by the common consent
of Islam would fall to the family of the prophet, the
present representative of which is Hussein, the Sharif of
Mecca/' He clears his throat. "Hussein s activities seem
beneficial to us, because it marches with our immediate
aims, the breakup of the Islamic bloc and the disruption
of the Ottoman Empire, and because the states he would
set up to succeed the Turks would be as harmless to
ourselves as Turkey was. If properly handled the Arab
States would remain in a state of political mosaic, a tissue
of jealous principalities incapable of cohesion, and yet

always ready to combine against an outside force/'

The council makes a tentative decision to support at
least some of Lawrence's plan, and further discussion
with the Roundtable will be needed. The meeting is
over. The recommendations of Lawrence s Arab Bureau
are usually not questioned by Her Majesty's government,
and this plan seems to be particularly sound. By dismem-
bering Turkey and, in the process, eliminating the only
existing central Muslim authority as represented by the
centuries-old caliphate, any possibility that the Germans
or the Russians — who seem to have undue political
influence in Turkey anyway — will gain control over the
political mechanism of Islam will be removed. By the
same token, the Arabian tribes of the Hijaz loyal to

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT

131

Hussein are merely vassals of London's Arab Bureau.
With British intelligence in control of the new caliphate,
the entire Muslim world will in effect fall under the
guidance of the pro-British Meccans.

Great Britain's geopolitical alliance with Islamic fun-
damentalism is born.

■

It was not really as easy as all that, of course. Certainly,
over the past thirty years Cairo had been transformed
into the regional subheadquarters of British intelligence,
and a sophisticated operation it was. Out of Cairo, and
funded with British gold, the Arab Bureau controlled a
dozen different Muslim fundamentalist movements. All
they would need was eventual centralization to provide
better coordination for tactical changes in British Empire
policy. But an absolutely invaluable foundation had been
constructed.

Consider the case of the Senussi Brotherhood.

Through the Senussi Brotherhood, headquartered in
Cairo, Britain's Arab Bureau had established fortresses
of British influence stretching down the deepest recesses
of central Africa.

The founder of the Senussi Order of Ikhwan (Broth-
ers) was Mohammed bin Ali al-Senussi al-Khattabi al-
Idrisi al-Hassani, who was born somewhere in Algeria in
the 1780s. Senussi studied at Karuwiyin University in
Fez, Morocco, and in 1829 he was moved to found a
secret society of Sufi ascetics in the Sahara Desert,
modeled on the ancient orders of Christian monks. The
movement's slogan was "Islamic unity," and it spread
gradually into Tunisia, Tripolitania, and Cyrenaica. (In
1951, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica would unite to form

132

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the state of "Libya.") In a few years, Senussi traveled to
Mecca in Arabia. It was on this voyage that he and his
companions established the "Senussi Brotherhood."

Though it was clearly North African in origin, the
Senussi Brotherhood had a great deal in common with a
similar fundamentalist cult that was gathering adherents
in Arabia: the Wahhabi. Both the Wahhabi and the
Senussi reflected the impact of the orthodox Sufi mysti-
cal currents then flowing out of British India.

In 1830, the French invaded Algeria. In response, the
Ottoman Empire invaded Libya again. Senussi traveled
back from Arabia and Yemen, where he now had a
branch of the Brotherhood, to North Africa toward
Algeria. But the French, who apparently believed Sen-
ussi to be a dangerous agitator in the pay of the British,
blocked his entry to Algeria, and he was forced to halt in
Libya where he set up his headquarters in Cyrenaica.
There, on the Mediterranean coast near Egypt, Senussi
directed the White Monastery (Zawiya al-Baida), which
became the mother lodge of the order. In 1853, he
moved his headquarters south to the oasis village of
Giarabub in the middle of the desert, where he founded
his cultist Islamic University. That monastery sat astride
the old desert Bedouin trade route linking Benghazi to
points in central Africa, including the town of Wadai,
whose Sultan Mohammed Sharif was one of Senussi's old
Meccan allies from the 1820s.

As the years passed, the Order of the Senussis grew,
By 1882, there were thirty-eight zawiyas in Cyrenaica,
seventeen in Egypt, eighteen in Tripolitania, with others
scattered across the North African desert. The estimated
total of its adherents was between 1.5 and 3 million
ikhwanis. In its actions, the order was openly anti-
French, and it backed rebels in Algeria against the

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT

133

French colonialists— while it refused to help the Mahdi
of Sudan, who was fighting against Britain's General
Charles Gordon at Khartoum in the 1880s. In 1894, the
Senussi Order moved its headquarters to the remote
oasis of Kufra deep in the Libyan desert. From there the
Senussi waged constant war against the French from
Algeria and Tunisia to the center of Africa. Mohammed
al-Mahdi, Senussi's son and successor, directed guerrilla
warfare against the French from a military camp based
at Lake Chad.

Until this time, the Senussi Brotherhood was only a
minor adjunct of British intelligence operations in the
Muslim world. But in 1897 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt took
the arduous journey to the Senussi oasis in Africa. During
the next twenty years, the British paid an increasing
amount of attention to the Senussi movement. In 1916,
upon the death of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the young Idris
became the chief of the Senussi Brotherhood, In 195U,
he would be proclaimed King Idris I of Libya in a
United Nations ceremony.

After World War I, the Senussi Brotherhood was
formally appropriated as an asset of Britain's Arab
Bureau in Cairo, and an eager agent of British intelli-
gence was dispatched to Tripolitania to help organize
the order s political work. The agent's name was Abdel-
Rahman Azzam. Many years later, he would become the
first Secretary-General of the British-sponsored League
of Arab States after World War II.

The Senussi Brotherhood was only one among many
operations watched over by the Arab Bureau from its
command center in Egypt. Of all the Arab countries,
Egypt was the only one occupied by British armed forces

134

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

and governed by a British administrator. Centrally lo-
cated in the Arab world and by far the most populous
Arab country, Egypt sat astride the vital Suez Canal that
was the lifeline of the British Empire and the transit
point for its naval bases from Gibraltar, Malta, Crete,
and Cyprus in the Mediterranean into the Indian Ocean

and "east of Suez/*

British aristocrats had long been fascinated with
Egypt's history, especially with the mysteries of the
ancient Egypt of the pyramids and pharoahs. The Scot-
tish Rite Freemasons were obsessed with its age-old
cults and the temple of Jerusalem, which both figure
prominently in the mystical rites of the British masonic
societies. For men like Cecil, Curzon, and Lord
Cromer, Egypt's mystique held an almost overpowering
attraction.

Since al-Afghani's stay in Cairo between 1871 and
1879, the British SIS and the Oxford and Cambridge
Orientalists had made of Egypt a bustling headquarters
for Afghani' s movement. Afghani had held court to
delegations of Syrian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox
Arab Christians from Lebanon and Alexandria, Egypt;
of Libyan deseft tribal chieftains and African Muslim
sultans; of Lebanese Maronite warlords; of Arabian
sheikhs and Sufi mystics from Persia and Afghanistan;
and of obscure Indian Muslim cults and secret societies.
But more than anything else, Afghani — and England's
intelligence service — had captured Egypt's soul. Under
the careful hand of Lord Cromer, a scion of the famous
Baring banking family who was the lord of Egypt before
World War I, Egypt's emerging national elite was in-
fected with the poison of Islamic fanaticism, British
liberalism, and Egyptian cult revivalism. It is a poison of

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT

135

which, almost exactly 100 years later, the Egyptian
nation has yet to purge itself.

Egypt was also the home of Afghani's most stalwart
disciple, Mohammed Abduh.

In 1871, when Afghani arrived in Cairo to take his
position at Al Azhar University, Mohammed Abduh
gravitated around Afghani's inner circle. Though only in
his early twenties and much younger than Afghani, he
became his master s closest collaborator and, when Af-
ghani was made to leave Egypt in 1879, Abduh followed
him to London and Paris a few years later.

Abduh s life had been one of almost total immersion
in the Sufi cult. All day Abduh would fast and study,
spending the night in prayer and chanting and reading
the Koran. He adopted the Sufi practice of asceticism,
wearing a rough garment and going barefoot; he walked
with his eyes downcast, speaking to no one. According to
his own testimony, he at times lost all contact with
reality and entered into trancelike states, moving in an
imaginary world and conversing with the spirits of men

long dead.

Under Afghani's tutelage Abduh gradually dropped
some of his more eccentric qualities and began to
develop into an advocate of the science of logic. Aside
from the Sufi mystics, he began to absorb the works of
Aristotle and British empiricists. He was especially fond
of John Stuart Mill, whose essays became widely known
among the early pan-Islamic movement's leaders.

After Afghani's forced departure, Mohammed Abduh
was inexplicably named the chief editor of the Journal
Officiel, the official, British-controlled publication of the
Egyptian government. That such a post would have been
given to a man like Abduh who was virtually unknown

136

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

except for his connections to Afghani's "secret society" —
the official charge on which Afghani was expelled— is a
show of the trust that London had already placed in him.

Working under Mohammed Abduh, as his assistant
editor, was Saad Zaghlul, the man who after World War
I would lead the Egyptian nationalist movement and the

Wafd ("Delegation") Party!

In 1883, Abduh joined Afghani in Paris, traveling
then to London where he spent time lecturing at Oxford
and Cambridge and consulting with British officials on
the crisis in Sudan. In Paris and London, Abduh was
Afghani's right-hand man in organizing the Indissoluble
Bond. It was Abduh' s job to handle the contacts for the
society among the Arabs, while Afghani concentrated on
Turks, Persians, and Indians.

When the French suppressed the Al-Urwah al-Wuth-
kah journal, Afghani and Abduh split up, Afghani trav-
eling to Russia — where he co-mingled with Russfan
anarchists, pan-Slavist organizers, Muslims of Russia,
and others who would be useful to the British later in the
famous " Parvus plan" — and Abduh to the Arab world.
For several years, Abduh traveled under various dis-
guises throughout the Arab world, concentrating on
Tunis, Beirut, and Syria. At each stop, he would organize
and indoctrinate a cell of the secret society in Afghani's
pan-Islamic doctrines.

Abduh preached a simplistic doctrine, but to the
insiders he would reveal much more of the nature of the
antireligious tracts of the Scottish Rite and the "one
world'* unity-of-mankind propaganda. Those whom Ab-
duh found to be particularly advanced he would arrange
to meet an officer of British intelligence from London.
By this means, Abduh explored the entire network of

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT

137

Afghani s partisans, including Syrian and Lebanese
Christians, Jews in Egypt and elsewhere, and represen-
tatives of many of the minority sects and ethnic groups
of the area.

The public side of Abduh s mission was spent con-
stantly preaching the Muslim fundamentalist doctrine.
Abduh argued that the Muslim world, fragmented and
in collapse, could not progress until it was once again
united under a single caliphate. Abduh blamed the rulers
of the various Muslim nations and also the establishment
clergy — who, in most cases, were paid by the political
leaders — for the tragedy that had befallen the Muslim
world over the preceding centuries. His secret societies
were dedicated to Islamic revolt.

The British secret behind this Islamic revolt is ex-
posed in Abduh's preachings like the following: "The
cure for those ills of the Muslim countries is not to be
found in the multiplication of newspapers — for these
have little influence; not in the introduction of schools
modeled after those of Europe — for these can be used,
together with the sciences they teach, to foster foreign
influence; nor in European education and imitation of
foreign customs — for imitation has succeeded only in
quenching the spirit of the people and drawing down
upon these countries the power of the foreigners they
imitate. The only cure for these nations is to return to
the rules of their religion/*

In 1888, Mohammed Abduh returned to Egypt and
there received a personal pardon for the crimes of
sedition for which he had been expelled by Lord Cromer.
From 1888 until his death in 1905, Abduh was one with
the elites of Egypt's political scene, and could be seen
regularly visiting the home and office of Lord Cromer

138

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

himself. From 1895 to 1905 he was the confidant of
Mustafa Pahsa Fahmi, Egypt's prime minister, In 1892,
he had been named to run the Administrative Commit-
tee for Al Azhar mosque and university. From that post
he reorganized the entire Muslim system in Egypt, and
because Al Azhar was recognized as the center of all
learning in Islam, throughout the Muslim world as well.
Finally, on June 3, 1899, Mohammed Abduh was named
Mufti of all Egypt.

The post gave Abduh enormous power: he was the
general consultant on justice for the whole country and
particularly for the state, in all matters pertaining to
Islam. Over the next six years, he would place into every
key position in Egyptian Muslim affairs members of Al-
Afghanis secret societies and devotees of Al-Urwah al-
Wuthkah, and he would work unceasingly to encourage
the growth of the clandestine movement that, some
twenty years after his death, would be formally consti-
tuted as "the Muslim Brotherhood."

There is a direct line from British tool Al-Afghani to the
Muslim Brotherhood of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

With the death of Afghani in 1897 and Abduh in

1905, the mantle of leadership for the pan-Islamic move-
ment fell to Mohammed Rashid Rida. A Syrian who had
been educated in Tripoli, Rashid Rida had become one
of The Indissoluble Bond at a young age. Like the others
a confirmed Sufi, he was upgraded through Afghani s
freemason society through his reading of Al-Urwah al-
Wuthkah, which, he said later, was the greatest inspira-
tion of his life with the exception of the Ihya of Al-

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT

139

Ghazali. Rida never met Afghani, but in 1897 he went to
Egypt to study with Mohammed Abduh.

A year later, he began publishing his own newspaper,
Al Manar, in Cairo. Rida intended his journal to become
the voice of the pan-Islamic movement, in the tradition

of Al-Urwah al-Wuthkah, whose few copies were still in

circulation some twenty years after the journal had
ceased publication in Paris! Copies of Al Manar (The
Lighthouse) that were sent to Turkey and Syria were not
allowed through customs, however, because of its critical
posture toward "Islamic reform."

Al Manar proposed the same plan as Lawrence of
Arabia: the establishment of an Islamic Society under
the caliphate, with its central branch at Mecca,

During its publication, Al Manar carefully followed
the progress of the proto-Muslim Brotherhood. The
Young Turk Revolution of 1908 was praised mightily by
Rashid Rida and Al Manar, but the later Turkish revolu-
tion under Mustafa Kamal Ataturk in the 1920s crushed
Rashid Rida's hopes. Rashid Rida railed against Ataturk's
attitude as one of "pure unbelief and apostasy from
Islam, of which there is no uncertainty." As the twen-
tieth century wore on, Rashid Rida bitterly condemned
the beginnings of Egyptian and Turkish nationalism,
and we have already seen how the Iranian Shiite clergy —
including the young Khomeini — made it impossible for
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to establish an Ataturk-mod-
eled republic of Iran in the 1920s,

The very name of Ataturk struck terror into the
hearts of London's fundamentalists in the Islamic world,
especially in the patiently cultivated Sufi mystical cells
of Turkey. Since the middle of the nineteenth century,

140

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the British had worked to develop an alliance between
several leading Sufi orders in Turkey, such as the
Beqtashi and the Naqshbandi, and the "pan-Islamic"
Scottish Rite of Freemasons of Afghani and his followers.
Together, this British subversive alliance formed the so-
called Committee on Union and Progress and the
"Young Turks." The Sufi cults had also managed to
secure a tight grip over the Kurds in eastern Turkey, a
troublesome ethnic minority that spilled over into Iraq
and Iran. Many hundreds of thousands, even millions of

Turks and Turkish Kurds had been enveloped in mysti-
cism and superstition. This was the breeding ground of
the so-called Whirling Dervishes, and it was the back-
wardness that Ataturk declared war upon.

After taking power, Ataturk proclaimed in 1925 that
from that point on Turkey would be free from "sheikhs,
dervishes, disciples, dede, seyyid, celebi, baba, emirs,
bakib, halife, fortune tellers, magicians, witch doctors,
writers of amulets for recovering lost property or the
fulfillment of wishes, as well as the services, dues, and
costumes pertaining to these titles and qualities.

"The aim of the revolution which we have been and
are now accomplishing is to bring the people of the
Turkish Republic into a state of society entirely modern
and completely civilized in spirit and form. This is the
central pillar of our Revolution, and it is necessary
utterly to defeat those mentalities incapable of accepting
this truth. Hitherto, there have been many of this
mentality, rusting and deadening the mind of the nation.
In any case, the superstitions dwelling in people s minds
will be completely driven out, for as long as they, are not
expelled it will not be possible to bring the light of truth
into men's minds.

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT

141

"To seek help from the dead is a disgrace to a
civilized community. What can the objects of the broth-
erhoods be other than to secure the well-being in worldly
and moral life of those who follow them? I flatly refuse
to believe that today, in the luminous presence of
science, knowledge, and civilization in all of its aspects,
there exist in the civilized community of Turkey men so
primitive as to seek their material and moral well-being
from the guidance of one or another sheikh. Gentlemen,
you and the whole nation must know, and know well,
that the Republic of Turkey cannot be the land of
sheikhs, dervishes, disciples, and lay brothers. The
straightest Truest Way [a pun on the Sufi use of the
word "way"] is the way of civilization/'

Ataturk enforced his policy with bullets. Lodges and
fraternity houses of the brotherhoods and orders were
closed down and their organizations dissolved. Their
assets were confiscated by the state, and the military
swiftly punished anyone attempting to revolt against the
decrees.

The Muslim Brotherhood was Britain's answer to the
Ataturk challenge.

The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood was born in
Egypt in 1906. Like most of his predecessors in the
British fundamentalist cult, he was indoctrinated in Sufi
mysticism at an early age, and was soon caught up in the
Afghani and Abduh network in Egypt. His name was
Hasan al-Banna, and before his murder in 1949 he would
succeed in building an organization feared throughout

the Muslim world.

Banna's father, Sheikh Ahmad Abd al-Rahman al-

142

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Banna al-Saati,- was a moderately well-known author
who had been educated at Al Azhar under Mohammed
Abduh. Enrolled by his father in the Sufi schools, Banna
passed through a succession of religious societies. At the
age of twelve, the boy was the leader of an organization
whose name was the Society for Moral Behavior. He
then passed on to the Society for the Prevention of the
Forbidden. Early in his life he became acquainted with
the mystic circle of the Order of Hasafiyya Brothers, and
for more than twenty years, he was a member of this
secret society. By 1922, he was accepted as a full-fledged
member of the Hasafiyya cult and proudly wore the
cult's tasseled turban and white robe.

Banna's guiding star was Al-Ghazali, whose books he
read and reread.

The talk of the societies to which Banna belonged
revolved around the threat of nationalism in Egypt as
represented by the liberal pafties like the Wafd. They
also looked with alarm on the developments in Turkey
under Ataturk. The process of economic development in
Egypt and other parts of the Muslim world had encour-
aged the growth of scientific learning and schools de-
voted to technical training. This the Sufis considered a
grave threat to the "Islamic way of life." Everywhere
that Banna's circle looked, they could see signs of the
"apostasy and nihilism" of allegedly anti-Muslim cur-
rents, and "the weakening of the influence of religion."
Banna decided to form various societies dedicated to the
spread of fundamentalist Islam among the ordinary
Egyptian. Based in Al Azhar and the Dar al-Ulam
higher education center there, he organized "people's
institutes" to counter the propaganda of the reformers.

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT

143

But the impetus for the Muslim Brotherhood came

directly from the Al-Manar Party of al-Afghani and

Abduh. By the early twentieth century, the Al-Manar
Party had come to dominate Egypt. Among its members
were the leaders of the powerful Al Azhar mosque and
university complex, in which the Abduh faction had
staked its claim.

By the age of twenty-one, Banna had been intro-
duced to the leadership of the Al-Manar. Often, begin-
ning in the late 1920s, he would meet and talk for hours
with Rashid Rida. Through the older man s influence,
Banna was confirmed in his belief in opposition to
"Western" influence in Egypt, to franji (foreign) tradi-
tions; he rejected the cultural trappings of the West in
favor of "pure Islam."

In 1927, Banna helped to found the Young Men's
Muslim Association. This organization was quickly
superseded by the establishment, in 1929, of the Society
of Muslim Brothers.

Banna set up the organization's headquarters in
Ismailia, a port city controlled by the Anglo-French Suez
Canal Company. The company — the leading represen-

L.

tation of British imperialism in Egypt — financed the
Brotherhood, helping Banna to build its first mosque,
completed in 1930. By 1932, the Muslim Brotherhood of
Hassan al-Banna, joined by his brother Abdel-Rahman
al-Banna, could claim branches in Ismailia, Port Said,
and Suez, and it was spreading fast to Cairo and
Alexandria.

Over the next-years, the Muslim Brotherhood quietly
took root, producing various publications, including a
newspaper.

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

By the late 1930s, the Brotherhood was strong
enough to form its first paramilitary branch, the kataib
(" battalions"). It began with the creation of a division
called the "rovers." The "rovers" grew out of the youth
section s athletic training program; soon they were a
private army. Their organization followed closely the
pattern of Mussolini's squadristi; indeed, the British,
German, Nazi, and Italian fascist intelligence services
were helping to create similar organizations in many
Middle Eastern countries — the Kataib, or Falange, of
Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon is one example.

In 1935, Banna made contact with the increasingly
pro-Nazi and British-sponsored Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj

Amin al-Husseini.

The Ikhwan also looked for and found support from
the corrupt King Fuad and later, King Farouq, both
obsequious stooges of London who sat on the Egyptian
throne. It began to be funded with state monies. Like
Egypt's other fascist party, Young Egypt, the Ikhwan of
Hasan al-Banna celebrated the rule of the king — while it
quietly prepared for a violent revolution.

With the outbreak of World War II, the Ikhwan
began to forge the network that until this day has
remained as London's Muslim Brotherhood. First, the
Ikhwan established ties with the Azzam family, including
Abdel-Rahman Azzam; Fuad Serageddine, the leader of
the right-wing faction of Egypt's Wafd Party; current
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat; and officers in the
Egyptian army.

In 1941, the first documented case of cooperation
between the Brotherhood and a leading British intelli-
gence officer, J. Heyworth Dunne, at London's Cairo
embassy was reported. It was just the beginning.

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT

145

Beginning in 1942, the Ikhwan began to construct its
widely feared Secret Apparatus, its private intelligence
arm that fast became a terrorist, paramilitary arm of the
Brotherhood. As the Ikhwan prepared for its terrorist
phase, it organized the Brotherhood into secretive terror-
ist cells.

Within three years, the Secret Apparatus had begun
to infiltrate and in some cases, take over other organiza-
tions. One of the organizations it infiltrated was the
Communist Party of Egypt, setting the pattern for the
Brotherhood-Communist collaboration that would follow
throughout the Middle East. This blending of "left" and
"right" is the classic stamp of the London Tavistock
Institute and Sussex University. Americans recognize it
today as the "Islamic Marxist" movement that put
Khomeini in power.

As the war drew to an end, the Ikhwan launched its
first terror assault. Its goal: to destroy the sections in the
nationalist Wafd Party, in the Communist Party, the
labor movement, army, and industry that, together,
might have forged a coalition to oust the British from
the Suez and Cairo.

After 1945, a quiet alliance was established in Egypt
among the palace, the aristocracy, and the Muslim
Brotherhood. Critical to this alliance — the cornerstone of
the British presence in Egypt — was Anwar Sadat. After
his release from prison in 1944, Sadat met with Hasan al-
Banna, who asked Sadat to mediate a deal with King
Farouq.

Sadat's contact in the palace then was Yusuf Rashad,
the personal physician to Farouq and the director of the
Royal Intelligence Service. Sadat and Rashad had been
close friends for many years. "We grew to be more than

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

friends," says Sadat of Rashad in his autobiography, In
Search of Identity, "We became perpetual companions.
. . . I still remember the day he gave me John Stuart
Mill's Totalitarianism, Liberty, and Representative Gov-
ernment, which impressed me deeply."

So was Sadat recruited into the service of British

intelligence.

Via Rashad, Sadat served as London's link between
the king, increasingly paranoid about the British, and
the Muslim Brotherhood of Hasan al-Banna.

Throughout the winter of 1946-47, the Brotherhood
functioned as a political wrecker, assassinating leaders of
all parties and especially trying to block the possibility of
a Wafd-Communist alliance. The Wafd, though split by
factions and corrupt, leveled deadly accusations at the
covert alliance among the king, Prime Minister Sidqi,
and Banna's Brotherhood. The party's press attacked the
"fascist terror" of the Muslim Brotherhood, accusing the
"phalanxes of Muslim Brothers" of thuggery. When the
Wafd would establish a typical "minority government,"
the Brotherhood would then destabilize it with a few
well-directed atrocities.

In one case, the Finance Minister Amin Uthman
Pasha was assassinated in 1946 amid public charges that
he was a "British agent" — charges made, surprisingly, in
documents published by the Royal Institute of Interna-
tional Affairs. In this case, Anwar Sadat was arrested for
the murder.

The Muslim Brotherhood terror climaxed in 1948. At
that point, the Egyptian government began to crack
down. At first, Banna piously denied that his organiza-
tion had anything to do with terrorism, blaming it on
uncontrollable elements of the movement. But in Nov-

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT

147

ember 1948, Prime Minister Nugrashi issued an order
dissolving and outlawing the Brotherhood. On Decem-
ber 28, Ikhwan delivered its answer: Nugrashi was
murdered. Within two weeks, Banna went on the offen-
sive; he repudiated his earlier disavowal of terrorism and
called the Muslim Brothers to jihad.

The result was not what he expected; on February
12, 1949, Banna was assassinated.

Banna's death shook the Brotherhood — but not for long.
In Egypt's prisons, where many of the Brothers spent
much of the two years from 1949 to 1951, the Ikhwan
had been kept secretly alive. Exiles planted the Brother-
hood in Syria, Jordan, and Pakistan.

A large Egyptian landowner, Munir al-Dilla, took
charge of the Brotherhood after Banna's murder. Dilla
installed Hasan Ismail al-Hudaybi as the Supreme
Guide, Hudaybi being a brother-in-law of the chief of
the royal household.

In 1952, the Free Officers staged their coup d'etat
that ousted the king. The coup was the work of many
foreign intelligence agencies—especially the British,
French, and American— and the Muslim Brotherhood,
which surrounded an essentially Egyptian nationalist
core. General Neguib, the regime's front man, was close
to the Ikhwan. But within a year tension developed
between the Free Officers and the secret society. In
February and April of 1953, Supreme Guide Hudaybi
had a series of top-secret conspiratorial meetings with
Trevor Evans of the British embassy in Cairo. Acting on
his own authority, according to official Egyptian govern-
ment documents released in 1954, Hudaybi secretly told

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the British that he would lobby to grant Great Britain
permanent rights to occupy the Suez Canal base after
the formal withdrawal of British troops stationed there.
The secret meetings took place right in the middle of the
explosive Anglo-American negotiations over Suez.

The Brotherhood had been caught red-handed. As
the Nasser government moved toward a confrontation
with the British, the Muslim Brotherhood was directed
by London to wage war against the nationalist president.
In that, the Ikhwan got help from Israeli intelligence.

In a scandal that had international repercussions, a
team of Israeli saboteurs entered Egypt and set explosive
devices off at several American and British offices,
hoping thereby to trigger civil war in Egypt in which
Nasser could be brought down. But the plan was leaked
and exposed. Egypt's Al Ahratn and other Egyptian press
called the Muslim Brotherhood, now officially dissolved
by the government, the tool of imperialists "and the
Zionists/'

The Brotherhood once again resorted to terror.

On October 26, 1954, as Nasser was addressing a
huge crowd, an Ikhwan member fired six shots at the
Egyptian president, who went unharmed. As the echoes
of the shots faded away, Nasser told the crowd: "Oh ye
people. Oh, ye free men. , . . Even if they kill me now, I
have placed in you self-respect. Let them kill me now,
for I have planted in this nation freedom, self-respect,
and dignity. . . . Remember that, if anything should
happen to me, the Revolution will go on, for each of you

is a Gamal Abdul Nasser/'

Mass arrests and executions of Muslim Brothers
quickly followed. Throughout Egypt, the terrorists of the

HEADQUARTERS IN EGYPT

149

Muslim Brotherhood were hunted down. Hundreds fled
the country for Syria, Jordan, the Gulf, and Pakistan.

The movement had been crushed in Egypt; but now
it had a home in every corner of the Islamic world.

Muslim Brotherhood III:

Clear and
Present Danger

The young Syrian cadet was puzzled. Why was he
being summoned now to attend an assembly? He
had just checked the schedule posted on the activities
board of the Aleppo military college, and there was no
assembly of cadets for that day. He was surprised
because the Aleppo center was one of the premier
military training units in Syria, with a long and proud
tradition, and such spur-of-the-moment changes in
schedule were quite unusual. In fact, the young cadet
was slightly annoyed at having to break his regimen to
traipse across the yard to the assembly hall.

As he left the building, he fell into step with some of
his comrades. Strange, he thought to himself. Not every-
one had been summoned to this assembly. Just a couple
of hundred of the aspiring young military officers in his
unit and several nearby.

150

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

151

In groups, smartly and efficiently, the cadets filed
into the hall, gradually filling the seats and awaiting
whatever was the reason for the call. Something still
seemed not quite right to the young cadet, for the usual
contingent of senior commanders was not already pres-
ent at the front of the hall. By now, the hall was full of
neatly dressed Syrian cadets, and no one else seemed to
be on the way, Yet nothing was happening. Used to
discipline, the Syrian cadets sat there without talking,
though some of them shared the uneasiness.

Then, at the back of the hall, the doors were shut.
The cadet heard them close — and, then, very strangely,
heard the heavy bolt fall and the sound of chains. Now
alarmed, the young cadet slowly stood up to see if he
could discover what was going on. Too late. The sound
of splintering wood and breaking glass confirmed his
fears that something was gravely amiss, and he looked
up to the row of windows along the side of the building
just in time to see the grenade come hurling through the
shards of glass. It was the last thing he would ever see:
the explosion of the grenade sent shrapnel flying through
the hall, one of the pieces ripping into the throat of the
young cadet. All of a sudden, other windows broke and
other grenades went off in rapid succession. With all
exits bolted, there was no escape from the reign of death.

After the grenade assault, a team of armed men
appeared at the windows, bearing automatic weapons.
In a deadly crossfire, hundreds of rounds sprayed the
unarmed cadets from every direction. The carnage lasted
only minutes, but when it was over perhaps sixty Syrian
men were dead and more than a hundred wounded.

Syrian President Hafez Assad was just about to make
the final preparations for his momentous visit to Bagh-

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

dad, Iraq, the next day, when he heard of the massacre
in the military school at Aleppo. His intelligence officers
reported that it appeared that the organization that was
responsible for the deed was the ihhwan al-muslimun,
the Muslim Brotherhood. Because of the importance of
the visit he was about to make to Iraq, and because
President Assad knew that the perpetrators of the deed
had intended to prevent his going to Baghdad to end the
long-standing Syria-Iraq feud, Assad ordered all news of
the massacre suppressed.

But within weeks, the report did filter into the Arab
press and, then, was confirmed by the Syrian authorities.

It was August 1979, The little-known Muslim Broth-
erhood had made itself known once again. Skeptics, who
had earlier scoffed that the Muslim Brotherhood had
vanished in Egypt twenty-five years earlier and who
dismissed claims that the ihhwan were behind the revo-
lution in Iran, began now to have second thoughts.

The events in Aleppo, Syria, made it clear that the
existence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East
is a danger of the most profound sort tc^every nation in
the Middle East — and to world peace.

What is at stake with the rise again of the Muslim
Brotherhood to a position of prominence is the existence
of the nation-state in the Muslim world. The Muslim
Brotherhood does not recognize the existence of separate
states; it wants to abolish states and create a single
Muslim empire again. It divides the world into two
parts: the areas under Muslim rule, and areas ruled by
"heathen," non-Muslim peoples. And it proclaims a

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

153

permanent jihad to capture and conquer the non-Muslim
world. It does not recognize existing borders and state
boundaries. Iran's President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr,
asked about the 1980 border conflict between Iran and
secular Iraq, its neighbor, replied, "Between Muslim

states there exist no borders."

A display of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood

was provided at a May 1980 conference of the Muslim
Student Association (MSA), the U.S. branch of the
Muslim Brotherhood, in a speech by Mahmoud Rashdan,
the MSA's general secretary.

"We know the story of Kemal Ataturk, the 'hero of
modern Turkey,' " began Rashdan, referring to the
Turkish republican leader. "And what is modern Tur-
key? From 1924 until now, more than fifty-six years, do

we find Turkey more independent or more dependent?

Do we find it weaker or stronger?

"There are many Ataturks today. There is an Ataturk
in Libya, There is an Ataturk in Baghdad. There is an
Ataturk in Syria. And until these Ataturks are removed
and destroyed, conspiracies will continue. And they will
be destroyed, inshallah!"

From the audience came shouts of " Inshallah!" and
"Allahu Akhbar!"

Rashdan continued: "These Ataturks who speak our
language and think in the Western mind do not belong
to this Muslim land. The Ataturks of the twentieth

century have made much more damage than the tyrants
of the old days. As the Arabic poet says, in the old days
there used to be one pharaoh, one tyrant, and there used
to be one Moses who challenged that tyrant. Today we
have a thousand pharaohs, and we don't have a single

154

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Moses. But inshallah among you there will be thousands
and thousands of Moses who will destroy these thousands
of smaller, mini-pharaohs!"

Again, the audience chants: "Allahu Akhbar!"

"Look at Saddam Hussein, a butcher in Iraq, a
butcher of Muslims. And with whom does he shake
hands? The progressive government of Iraq shakes hands
with the reactionary government of Saudi Arabia. Sad-
dam Hussein was yesterday talking about the Saudi
Arabians as being reactionaries, as being agents of the
Americans, of the British, of everything. Suddenly they
have become friends. Suddenly, they have a treaty, an
agreement, a security agreement. Suddenly they are in
the same camp.

"And add to that Hafez Assad, a butcher in Syria.
Both these people butcher Muslims in their own coun-
tries, yet they go get donations and put on a label that
they are a rejection front. And so they lull the Muslim
masses into hibernation. They think everybody is sleep-
ing. The Muslim masses are not sleeping — they are
awake. The Muslim masses do not believe these slogans,
and they know these conspiracies. You know them. And
they know that the White House in Washington and the
Red House in Moscow are behind them.''

Declaring Palestine then to be "an Islamic cause,"
Rashdan declared: "I want to make it clear that to us
Muslims, Palestine is part of our ideology. The conflict
in Palestine is an ideological conflict where the masses of
Muslims under the Islamic tenets have to be marshaled
or mobilized. We support every action or every liberation
movement which indeed seeks to liberate all of Pales-
tine — Haifa and Jerusalem — not only to raise ambiguous
slogans. . . . Kings used to be assassinated because they

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANCER

155

accepted the partition of 1947. Now they are made
heroes because they accept the 1967 borders.

"So my brothers and sisters in Islam, let us define
and let us know that Palestine is a Muslim land by the
definition of the holy Koran. It is part of our faith. Its
liberation is not up to our rulers, because they will not
liberate it because they have surrendered it. We should
stop seeking hope or insight from these present govern-
ments, with no exception. They are the cause of the
disease — they cannot be the cure for the disease. May

Allah make us true mujaheddin. May Allah liberate

Palestine through the blood and through the jihad of
true Muslims from all over the world."

The target of the Muslim Brotherhood is not Israel or
the United States — but the governments of the Muslim

world s nations. Rashdan' s is not an atypical speech. It is
even mild as an example of ikhwani rhetoric. In 1979 in
an interview, another member of the Muslim Brother-
hood gave his views of the movement's present position
in the following way:

"The Brotherhood has taken over Iran and Pakistan.
The revolution in Iran is our success. In Pakistan, the
same. The Zia government there is our government.
Bhutto stood for the intrusion of Western culture into
Islam. He was everything that Pakistan was not. We
killed him for that. And we will use his death as a
warning to others.

'What you see going on now in Afghanistan is also
our handiwork, the work of our brothers in the Jamaat-i-
Islami. India is next: the Muslims in India are beginning
to understand what must be done. The revolution is also
going to occur in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and sooner or
later in Turkey. This is a global Islamic movement. It

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

has been going on for centuries. We are the bearers of
real Islamic humanism. We are at war,"

No matter to what extent the Muslim Brothers are
aware of it, the war they wage is a war on behalf of
British strategic interests. British control of the Muslim
Brotherhood has survived since the days that Banna's
teacher Riad met daily with Lord Cromer in Egypt.

Since World War II, a new generation of British

Arabists has emerged to take command of the Brother-
hood. In this chapter, we will take a look at the British
"old boys" — and "old Beys" — clique that has opera-
tional control of the Ikhwan. That control is used care-
fully and judiciously, when a particular Arab or Muslim
regime runs afoul of British policy. In such cases, the
semidormant Brotherhood is called into action on Brit-
ish command and used to carry out political terror-
ism, assassinations, and — as in Iran or Pakistan — even
revolution.

Years ago, the old British intelligence Arab Bureau
was moved from Cairo and relocated in London. Nothing
was lost in the increased distance between the command
center and its deployed troops. Today the modern * Arab
Bureau" is the so-called Arab-British Center and the
Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Under-
standing (CAABU), and its now defunct substation in
Lebanon, the Shemlan Middle East Center for Arabic
Studies (MECAS). Together with research departments
in the oriental schools of Oxford, Cambridge, the Uni-
versity of London, Belgium's Jesuit Louvain University,
the Jesuit McGill University in Toronto, and Princeton
and Georgetown universities in the United States, Lon-
don's CAABU and the old MECAS mafia direct the
Muslim Brotherhood of today.

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

157

The Ikhwan's calls for jihad are formulated not in
the clandestine cells of Middle East cities, but in the
professorial offices of Western universities. The "Ber-
nard Lewis plan," for example, is the code-name for a
top-secret British strategy for the Middle East. Its author,
Bernard Lewis, is an Oxford University specialist in
Muslim affairs and the Middle East, currently at Prince-
ton University in New Jersey. Though active in tactical
plans on behalf of Anglo-American strategy — Dr. Lewis
was an attendee of the 1979 Bilderberg meeting in
Austria where "Muslim fundamentalism" was the lead-
ing topic — he«is primarily a scholar, whose assignment is
to profile the ideology and characteristics of the. Muslim
world. Based on his assessments, the British can then
decide what type of intervention will be most effective
in shaping Middle East affairs to British advantage.

Lewis's studies of Muslim history are scholarly en-
dorsements of the Muslim Brotherhood, promoting the
fraudulent view that Islam's nature is represented by the
fanatics like Al-Ghazali, the eleventh-century mystic,
and not by Islam's historically proven commitment to
science and technological progress.

Lewis's plan calls for the balkanization and fragmen-
tation of Brzezinski s "arc of crisis" along defined ethnic,
tribal, and religious sectarian lines. It was, not surpris-
ingly, worked out with the aid of Israeli intelligence.

According to Lewis, the British should encourage
rebellions for national autonomy by the minorities such
as the Lebanese Maronites, the Kurds, the Armenians,
Druze, Baluchis, Azerbaijani Turks, Syrian Alawites, the
Copts of Ethiopia, Sudanese mystical sects, Arabian
tribes, and so forth. The goal is the break-up of the
Middle East into a mosaic of competing ministates and

158

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the weakening of the sovereignty of existing republics
and kingdoms.

What is the role of the pan-Islamic Muslim Brother-
hood in all this?

The Brotherhood s pan-Islamic movement is, to the
partisans of the smaller sects and minorities, a danger-
ous threat to their autonomous existence. The British
then take the role of meditator, making deals with tribal
and ethnic leaders to sponsor their rebellions against the
Muslim Brotherhood.

Case in point: Iran, Almost as soon as the Khomeini
dictatorship seized power, the British began making
contacts with the tribal leaders of the Iranian nation who
threatened to declare independence from Iran. Although
most of these groups — because of their hatred of Kho-
meini — have joined in one way or another with the anti-
Khomeini opposition in exile, there is still the danger
that the success of the Khomeini revolution will spark a
series of breakaway movements by Iran's Kurds, Azeris,
Baluchis, and Arabs, among others. These independence
movements, in turn, would represent dire threats to
Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, and other neighboring states.

The Bernard Lewis plan puts the heads of state of
Muslim nations in a squeeze play between the Brother-
hood and those nations' own national minorities.

From the professors, British policy is run through the
Center for the Advancement of Arab-British Under-
standing and like benevolent associations. CAABU is no
fringe lobby group; its financial support comes from the
stalwarts of British Empire policy: Barclay's Bank, British
Aircraft Corporation, the British Bank of the Mideast,

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

159

Lazard Brothers, Lloyd's International, Lonrho, National
Westminster Bank, Rolls Royce, and Unilever.

From CAABU the word goes down to Britain's "Arab
hands" trained at the Middle East Center for Arabic
Studies (MECAS), in Shemlan, just south of Beirut.

Recently shut down, MECAS took over where Law-
rence of Arabia left off. Established under the auspices
of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1944,
MECAS brought together Britain's "Arabists," Zionists,
and Arabs who were pro-British, Former Israeli foreign
minister Abba Eban was a founding member. Joining
him were General Ilywyd Clayton, the military governor
of Egypt during World War II who worked with the
Muslim Brotherhood; Lord Killearn, the British ambas-
sador to Cairo; his aide, Sir Walter Smart; Martin
Charteris, director of British Secret Intelligence Services;
Sir Harold Beeley, private secretary to Queen Elizabeth;
and Albert Hourani, a Lebanese member of the Royal
Institute.

MECAS has trained hundreds of British intelligence
officials and agents in Arabic language, history, and
culture. Among its past teachers and students we find
the famous Sir John Bagot Glubb Pasha and his son Faris
Glubb; George Kirk of the Royal Institute; A. H, Wilton,
Britain's current ambassador to Saudi Arabia; triple
agent Kim Philby; Sir Donald Maitland; and Colonel
Bertran Thomas.

From MECAS the British spun out numerous organ-
izations to "advance British-Arab understanding/' There
is CAABU itself, the Anglo-Arab Association; the Arab-
British Charitable Trust; and the Labour Middle East
Council.

The most important of MECAS's offspring was the

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Arab-British Center, based in London, Among its leaders

and directors are: Sir Harold Beeley, currently cochair-

man of the World Festival of Islam Trust with UAE

ambassador Mohammed Tajir; Sir Richard Beaumont;

Sir Charles Duke; Sir Geoffrey Furlonge; Colin Jackson,

MP; Peter Mansfield, editor of Petromarket; John Red-

daway; and Robert Swann, a British-Thai intelligence
agent

Thus, in 1955, when the Muslim Brotherhood relo-
cated its headquarters from Cairo to London and Ge-
neva, Switzerland, after Nasser had driven them out of
Egypt, the Brotherhood was making more obvious a
relationship that had existed since its beginnings.

In Geneva, the Egyptian Ikhwan leader Said Ramad-
han set up the Institute for Isfamic Studies. Back in
Cairo, Ramadhan had been indicted for the conspiracy
to murder Nasser and was accused of having ties to
Israeli intelligence. This did not prevent him from
setting up Brotherhood headquarters in Europe. To-
gether with Salam Azzam he founded the Islamic Coun-
cil of Europe, which directs the Ikhwan from Morocco to
Pakistan and India, controlling hundreds of "religious"
centers across Western Europe, and through them, thou-
sands of fundamentalist students and Muslim clergy in
both the Middle East and Europe.

The most recent Muslim Brotherhood coordinating
organization is the Islam and the West (International),
founded in 1977, headquartered in Geneva.

Islam and the West boasts two "non- Muslim" lumU
naries: Aurelio Peccei of the Club of Rome, whose
policies are realized in Khomeini's destruction of the
Iranian economy; and Lord Caradon (a.k.a. Hugh Foot),

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

161

Britain's Jerusalem expert and former British ambassador
to the United Nations.

One of the organization's funders is the Islamic
Solidarity Fund, a subproject of the World Muslim
Congress, but another — the International Federation of
Institutions of Advanced Studies — is far more presti-
gious. It numbers among its funders Aurelio Peccei; the
Netherlands* Prince Bernhard, head of the Bilderberg
group; and Atlantic Richfield president Robert O. An-
derson. Anderson is also the head of the Aspen Institute.

The secretary-general of Islam and the West, Dr.
Marcel Boisard, a vice-director of studies at the Geneva
School of Higher International Studies, noted in an
interview that the first preparatory meeting for Islam
and the West was in Cambridge in 1976, with follow-up
meetings in Venice in 1977, and Paris in 1978. According
to Boisard, the focus of discussion was the need for a
"convergence between Islam and the West" in the
context of the "need for a new international order/ 7 A

w ■

$10 million budget was allotted for projects on "special
studies on the impact of science and technology on the
cultural and social life of both sides"; "studies on the
Muslim conception of human rights"; and "restoration
of Islamic institutions and establishment of new Islamic
centers."

The Protestant church's liaison to Islam and the West
is Rev. John B. Taylor, a director of the Geneva-based
Ecumenical Council of Churches. In an interview in
December 1979, Taylor hailed the Khomeini revolution
in Iran as the beginnings of an "Islamic renaissance."
"Other nations will be touched by the Islamic revival,"
he predicted, naming Turkey, where "religious clergy

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HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

will take over"; Egypt; and Algeria, where "the Muslim
Brotherhood is very important.''

This Muslim Brotherhood command network in Eu-
rope is what Zbigniew Brzezinski means when he says
"Islamic fundamentalism.'' This is the apparatus that is
prepared to bring the Islamic nations into an alliance
with NATO. Through Salam Azzam's Islamic Council of
Europe, the first steps were taken to accomplish exactly
that, via the Islamic Institute for Defense Technology.

The Institute was created in late 1978 by Azzam's

r

Council, and today Azzam serves as president of its
board of governors, while Muazzam Ali, head of the
Islamic Press Union (an Islamic Council subsidiary), is
secretary-general. The Institute's inaugural seminar was
held in London February 5 : 9, 1979. In attendance were
a wide range of military strategists and officers from
both the Islamic world, in particular General Zia's Paki-
stan, and from the NATO countries, with a preponderant
delegation from the United Kingdom. The organization s
statutes commit the Institute to procurement of the most

sophisticated weapons systems available.

To get a flavor for the sophistication with which the
Institute plans to further the Muslim Brotherhood cause,
while at the same time cooperating with NATO, consider
the presentation at that conference by A. K. Brohi,
former Pakistani Supreme Court president (who cleared
the way for the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979).

Brohi declared: "Muslim countries occupy a geostra-
tegic situation on the globe which enhances their impor-
tance in terms of defense, since many are situated on
some of the world's vital land and sea routes. . . . Muslim
countries must aim at self-reliance in defense prepared-

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

163

ness. This will serve as a deterrent against encroachment
upon their territorial integrity and their Islamic way of
life which thev cherish so dearlv. A concerted effort has
to be made to revive the true Islamic spirit to enable the
world of Islam to meet the ideological, economic, and
military challenges of the present era/'

With American and British jet fighters and tanks, of
course.

But if the Muslim Brotherhood is headquartered in
Western Europe, it is naturally based primarily in the
countries of the Mediterranean Arab world and into the
Persian Gulf.

Recent investigations have shown that there exist
several intermediary points for Muslim Brotherhood
activities. One channel of Muslim Brotherhood orders is
said to flow from Lebanon and Syria into Cyprus — long
a nexus of British intelligence in the Middle East — and

from there to the island nation of Malta, which is
allegedly one of the chief bases for the Brotherhood in
North Africa and Egypt.

Even with its Western European and British sponsors
and funders, the Muslim Brotherhood would not be the

political danger it is, if it were simply a collection of
small, poorly organized terrorist bands in the Mideast.
For any Muslim nation, fundamentalist student mobs,
fanatical sects and cults, and extremist cells of medieval
kooks would be nothing more than a routine police
problem. The Muslim Brotherhood poses its threat on a
far higher level.

In every Arab government, Turkey, and many Asian

164

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

nations, the Muslim Brotherhood enjoys the protection
of ministers, intelligence and security officials, military
officers, and others at the highest level of government.

Investigators who seek to .track down leaders of the
Brotherhood find their investigations mysteriously halted
on orders "from the top." Security officials and law
enforcement agents pursuing Ikhwan terrorists are sud-
denly assassinated. Politicians hesitate before opening an
inquiry into the Ikhwan because of direct knowledge or
rumor that some Mr. Big does not want his toes stepped
on.

The Brotherhood is assisted greatly by simple corrup-
tion. The huge quantities of cash that flow into the
coffers of several Persian Gulf states have created a
stratum of venal officials. The current special envoy of
the Arab League to the United States, Dr. Clovis Mak-

soud, exemplifies the phenomenon.

And this is not the root of the problem yet. The real
Muslim Brotherhood is not the fanatical sheikh with his
equally fanatical following, nor is it even the top mullahs
and ayatoliahs who lead entire movements of such

madmen; Khomeini, Qaddafi, General Zia are exqui-
sitely fashioned puppets.

The real Muslim Brothers are those whose hands are
never dirtied with the business of killing and burning.
They are the secretive bankers and financiers who stand
behind the curtain, the members of the old Arab,
Turkish, or Persian families whose geneology places
them in the oligarchical elite, with smooth business and
intelligence associations to the European black nobility
and, especially, to the British oligarchy.

And the Muslim Brotherhood is money. Together,
the Brotherhood probably controls several tens of billions

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

165

of dollars in immediate liquid assets, and controls billions
more in day-to-day business operations in everything
from oil trade and banking to drug-running, illegal arms
merchandising, and gold and diamond smuggling. By
allying with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Anglo-Ameri-
cans are not merely buying into a terrorists- for- hire
racket; they are partners in a powerful and worldwide
financial empire that extends from numbered Swiss bank
accounts to offshore financial havens in Dubai, Kuwait,
and Hong Kong. Does Bert Lance need a few hundred
million dollars to bail out his bank? Try the Muslim
Brotherhood. Is a major London conglomerate seeking
partners to invest a few billion in an African raw-
materials extraction venture? Try the Muslim Brother-
hood. Does an Anglo-American bloc of banking houses
want to start a run on the French franc? Try the Muslim
Brotherhood.

Since the murder of more than sixty Syrian cadets in
Syria, and countless other murders of major and minor
Syrian officials since then, not one arrest has been made
of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorists who have claimed
responsibility for the atrocities. The wave of violence
against the government of President Hafez Assad has
powerful friends in the government itself.

Two of these are extremely powerful: Colonel Rifaat
Assad, the president' s brother, who commands a special
military brigade; and Deputy Prime Minister Mo-
hammed Haider, Syria's economic czar.

The story behind these two sponsors of the Muslim
Brotherhood is a prime example of how the Bernard
Lewis plan works in the field. Both Rifaat Assad and

166

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Haider are Alawites, a minority sect in Syria that domi-
nates the present regime. Many of the recent assassina-
tions were directed against the Alawite minority — osten-
sibly by the pro-Sunni (or orthodox) Muslim Broth-
erhood. How is this possible? Sources report that Haider
and Assad are secretly encouraging the anti-Alawite
assassinations in-order to strengthen their case for Ala-
wite separatism and to weaken the central government.
Hence, Assad and Haider — who reportedly have ties to
Romanian intelligence — work along with the Ikhwan.

Historically, as most Syrian politicians know, the
Muslim Brotherhood has functioned in Syria and Leba-
non as the battering ram against the influence of the
French, and specifically Charles de Gaulle, in the region.
In 1944, when the British began their final assault to run
the French out of the area, the Youth of Mohammad
suddenly sprang up as a branch of the -then-powerful
Egyptian Ikhwan. The British influence revolved around

the triangle of the Syrian cities of Horns, Hama, and
Aleppo.

According to the Syrian press, certain official circles
in both Saudi Arabia and Jordan give logistical and
military assistance to the Ikhwan' s terrorists in Syria.

There are reports of paramilitary training camps in
Jordan, where Ikhwan brothers are trained. In at least
one instance, Syria also charged that the Palestine Lib-
eration Organization — which has its own ties with the
Muslim Brotherhood — was, in Lebanon, responsible for
training Ikhwan terrorists who then assassinated a top
Syrian official.

But the Brotherhood is also supported by the PLO's
fiercest enemies: the Christian Falangists, who give
weapons and money to the Syrian Ikhwan,

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

167

The Shiite Al-Amal group in southern Lebanon also
gives money and guns to the Syrian Ikhwan.

And it is through Lebanon that aid to the Syrian
Ikhwan is funneled from Israeli intelligence.

1

In 1979, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat met the cur-
rent head of the Muslim Brotherhood in his country,
Sheikh Elmessari of Al-Dawa magazine, at a banquet, an
event at which Sadat declared that he has nothing
against the Ikhwan and that it should be considered a
loyal, nationalistic force. The Brotherhood has come a
long way since Abdul Nasser officially dissolved the
organization.

Of course, Anwar Sadat is a "former" member of the

organization, and the Ikhwan operates in Egypt today

precisely as it did in the days of Sadat's work for it: as an

arm of the secret police. It is generally believed that

political control of the Ikhwan falls under the authority

of Hassan al-Tuhami, Sadat's special adviser. Al-Tuhami

is also a liaison with Israeli, British, and American

intelligence. Last year Tuhami declared that Egypt

might "mobilize 1 million Muslims for a march on
Jerusalem/*

Egypt's official Ikhwan sits atop a plethora of terrorist
underground groups that are not officially tied to it —
except for carrying out its orders. One is the Al Tafkir al-
Hijra (Repentance and Retreat), which traces its lineage
all the way back to Hasan al-Banna himself. The group
was reported to be involved in the 1979 taking of the
Grand Mosque — Islam's holiest building— in Mecca.

Then there is the Al Gamaa al-lslamiyya (The Islamic
Group), which began at Banna's Al Azhar university. In

168 HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the last several years, the Egyptian police have carried
out several arrest sweeps against this group. In Assiout,
police found thousands of automatic weapons — many of
them Uzi submachine guns made in Israel. During the
Islamic holy season of Ramadhan, the Islamic Group put
on display its military might, prompting Paris's Le
Monde to comment that the movement rivals the Egyp-
tian army as an organized force.

The Muslim Brotherhood has gained control — almost
officially— of the governments that neighbor Egypt,

Sudan, and Libya.

Since the appointment to the Sudanese cabinet of
Sheikh Turabi, Sudan has been in the hands of the
Ikhwan. Under his influence, Sudan has turned away
from the relationship it had been building with its
neighbor Ethiopia, and is now giving assistance to the

T

Eritrean Liberation Front, a manipulated guerrilla
movement seeking independence from Ethiopia.

Sudan has the potential to become the breadbasket
of all Africa with the rich soil of the Sud swamp in the
south, but it has never managed to climb out of the
backwardness it has suffered since the country became a
slave ground in the Middle Ages. Now the country faces
an upsurge of cult movements of dervishes and fanatical
preachers in its remote areas. Many of these cults
worship goddesses whose origin goes back to the pre-
Islamic Isis and Osiris.

The Ikhwan operates in Libya through the Senussi
Brotherhood. The Senussi Brotherhood's power has di-
minished little since the coming to power of Islamic
fundamentalist Muammar Qaddafi. In July 1979, it was
the Senussi Brotherhood that organized the Islamic
Legion of Egyptian, Libyan, and Tunisian cadre to fight
in Uganda in support of Idi Amin.

CLEAR AMD PRESENT DANGER

169

The Senussis are extemely secretive, and inquiring
journalists are told firmly that it is no longer in existence,
and indeed, that no one "has ever heard of it." But in
July 1977, the Senussis made headlines. A Lebanese
newspaper reported that Sadat was planning to strike a
deal with the Senussi. The society is based at a spiritual
center called Kufra in the middle of Libya's eastern
desert, which for years has served as a military base.
Many of the leading families in Cyrenaica are members

of the Brotherhood.

Egypt and the Magreb have their own Khomeini: the
blind imam, as he is called, Sheikh Kishk, who leads the
Cairo mosque. For years, the blind imam has been
attacking the "Westernization" of Egypt, and the cor-
ruption of political life. He has also attacked the Camp
David treaty. Yet Anwar Sadat has never had this
agitator arrested; he is regarded as the "most popular
man throughout Egypt."

Under pressure from Kishk and his following, Egypt's
parliament has now passed laws to Islamicize public life.
Alcohol has been banned, along with gambling.

Kishk' s influence also extends to Algeria and Tunisia.
In January 1979, a strange thing happened in the Medea
region of Algeria south of the capital of Algiers, near the
village of Blida. A letter began circulating purporting to
be the dreams of an imam in Mecca, announcing the
imminent end of the world. The letter asked anyone who
received it to make a copy and transmit it to another
person.

By doing so, the letter stated, the copier would go to
heaven when he died; otherwise, if he failed to copy the
letter, he would be condemned. The letter s circulation
caused a panic among the peasants of southern Algeria,

according to the Algerian El-Moudjahid.

170

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

According to Algerian sources, the exact same letter
circulated in the 1930s. The center of the operation was
and is a network in Kasr el-Boukhari in the Medea
region. The Algerian newspaper reports that "foreign
teachers" are spreading such nonsense, working with
certain people at the Algiers University and the Mosque
of Chateauneul in Blida, Kishk's fundamentalists were
telling peasants that to pray on land that is nationalized
is a sin.

It was further revealed that circulating among the
peasants in that area were thousands of cassette tapes of
speeches by Kishk — the same tactic Khomeini used in
Iran during his exile.

It is one thing for backward peasants to listen to the
"holy" words of the blind imam. It is another thing for
Egypt's educated. According to the latest estimates,

upwards of 25 percent of the youth on the country's
university campuses have been persuaded to campaign
for Kishk s "Islamic reforms."

"The MSA has kept away from Saudi Arabia as much as
it can, but I think that will change," the Iranian leader
told the conference of the Muslim Student Association in
the spring of 1980. He continued:

"In Saudi Arabia, we are working with the faction
around Prince Abdullah and the King. Also the educated
religious scholars are with us. Since the assassination of
King Faisal, the new ruler, Crown Prince Fahd, has

become more pro- West than any member of his family.
The Egypt-Israel treaty widened the split between the
two factions, which, of course, increases our leverage.
Fahd had counted on working with the Egyptian army

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

171

to prevent the Islamic movement in Iran from spilling
over into Saudi Arabia, but now he cannot work with
Egypt as he would like to. The Abdullah faction is
sympathetic to the movement, and is using its petrodol-
lars to finance movements elsewhere in the Islamic
world. They are working with Zia in Pakistan, I would
give Saudi Arabia ten years — maybe less."

The Brotherhood s plans for Saudi Arabia find echoes
in the Anglo-American press. After the September 1980
OPEC meeting in Vienna, the Washington Post wrote:
"Saudi Arabian power depends on there not being
another Iran in the oil world. The troubles at Mecca
[where the Muslim Brotherhood seized the Grand Mos-
que] showed that the next 'Iran' could even turn out to
be Saudi Arabia itself."

Protected by one section of the ruling family around
Prince Abdullah, the Muslim Brotherhood flourishes in
Saudi Arabia. Abdullah is the country's number-three
man and is the powerful commander of the National
Guard.

The National Guard was formed out of the remnants
of the Saudi Ikhwan, which was the paramilitary force
behind the takeover of Arabia early in this century by
King Abdel Aziz. To this day, the various tribes of the
Saudi desert — while no longer wielding their previous
influence, constitute a set of mafias and dissidents that
orbit around the person of Abdullah.

But Abdullah is not alone at the top among the
sponsors of the Brotherhood. The former head of Saudi
intelligence, Kamal Adham, and the family of royal
adviser Rashid Pharaon and Ghaith Pharaon, his busi-
nessman son, command the Ikhwan. And Prince Mu-
hammad bin Faisal, formerly the Saudi minister of

172

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

mineral resources and water, declared during a visit to
New York in 1980 that Khomeini and the mullahs of Iran
are bringing about an "Islamic renaissance" in Iran.

The Saudi backers of the Ikhwan are among the most
powerful and monied men in the Islamic world. Prince
Muhammad is at the center of a small empire of his own,
consisting of the Union of Islamic Banks in Jidda, with
branches in at least six other Muslim countries. He has
sponsored, in conjunction with European aristocrats,
talks on founding a new "Muslim World Order/' based
on the so-called Islamic dinar currency.

That the Muslim Brotherhood is a powerful force — with
the growing capability to fulfill Zbigniew Brzezinski s
prophecy of an "Arc of Crisis" — is clear. What is shock-
ing is that the Muslim Brotherhood has such strong
control over events in the United States — a non-Islamic
country. That is the story we tell in the next chapter.

Ikhwan, U.S.A.

// I have a package for Mr. Tabatabai."

I It is July 22, 1980, in a Maryland suburb of
Washington, D.C. The postman looks up briefly at the
man who had come to the door. The man hesitates,
perhaps having an inkling that there is something not
quite right about the postal delivery man at the front
door. But he calls his friend: "He says you have to sign
for the package yourself."

Ali Akbar Tabatabai starts walking toward the door.
He is the president of the Iran Freedom Foundation,
headquartered in Washington. Until two years ago, he
was the information counselor at the Iranian embassy in
Washington, a palatial building on Massachusetts Ave-
nue, but with the revolution in Teheran he suddenly
found himself out of a job.

173 fc

174

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Since then, he had set up the Foundation as a vehicle
of opposition to Khomeini and, despite threats from
sympathizers of the ayatollah, had established himself as
almost the sole public spokesman against Khomeini;
many other Iranians — republicans, monarchists, military
men — supported him, but from a distance. They were
too terrified to appear openly.

Two years ago, grim-faced Iranian students, wearing
masks and chanting mindless slogans, had marched in
the streets demanding "Death to the Shah!" On U.S.
television news, they became a familiar sight. Now, it is
the others who will march; on July 27, Tabatabai has
announced, the Iran Freedom Foundation will sponsor a
Washington rally of thousands of Iranians opposed to
Khomeini. The tables have turned, and this time it will
be former diplomats, army officers, professionals, and
the middle class who will go into the streets.

At the door, the postman is becoming impatient. In

his hand, hidden behind the package, he is holding a

gun. As Tabatabai opens the door, the " postman" fires

several shots into his chest and stomach, killing him

almost instantly. Dropping his package, the killer sprints
down the lawn and into his truck speeding away from
the quiet Maryland neighborhood.

It is still morning. Within two hours, the assassin,
David Belfield, a.k.a. Daoud Salahuddin, places a per-
son-to-person telephone call to Geneva, Switzerland to
Said Ramadhan of the Institute for Islamic Studies.

Later that afternoon, Belfield — undetected, and car-
rying several passports, possibly Libyan and Algerian —
flies to New York under an assumed name. There, he
changes planes and, adopting still another identity,

IKHWAN, U.S.A

175

slips past authorities and boards a plane bound for
Switzerland.

But it is not over. On July 31, 1980, a group of
Iranian exiles, some of whom took part in the July 27
anti-Khomeini rally in Washington, which occurred de-
spite Tabatabai's murder, are meeting in the home of
Kambiz Shahraies, leader of the Movement for the
Independence of Iran (GAMA). In Washington, Shah-
raies had been interviewed on television concerning the
death of Tabatabai, and he had denounced the Iranian
secret service, Savama, as responsible.

Outside the house, a young Iranian student and
friend of those inside is waiting in his automobile for the
discussion to end. Suddenly, as he looks up, he notices
what appears to be a black American man peering into
the house through one of the windows. The intruder
notices the man in the car and quickly runs away,
disappearing down the street.

Then, within minutes, the same man is suddenly
right outside the car, tapping on the window next to the
seat where the driver is sitting. The student slowly gets
out of the car — and the man fires five pistol shots at his
belly. Only one connects, but the student is critically
wounded. The would-be assassin flees.

In Washington, investigators are following up leads
on the killing of Tabatabai. The most astonishing report,
verified ffom many Iranian sources, is that General
Hossein Fardoust, believed to be the coordinator of
Savama for the Khomeini regime, was seen in Washing-
ton just before the murder took place.

Other evidence is piling up. David Belfield is found
to be a member of a gang of thugs gathered around an

176

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Iranian-American rug merchant named Bahram Nahi-
dian. Belfield, who is black, has a history of personal-
ity disorders and is revealed to have gravitated into the
underground of radical Black Muslim cult politics since
the middle of the 1970s. Eventually he had found
himself in the employ of Nahidian, who used him as a
bodyguard.

Nahidian, who is a strong supporter of Khomeini, is
reputed to be the Washington chief of operations for
Savama, and during the revolution he cooperated inti-
mately with the "revolutionary" Iranian Ambassador Ali
Agha.

Bribing Belfield with money and then putting him
up at his "Islamic House" on Wisconsin Avenue (Bel-
field' s last known place of residence) Nahidian takes on
the character of a classic terrorist "safehouse" controller.
The rug merchant is also close to the Muslim Student
Association Persian-Speaking Group, whose Washington
branch was founded years ago by Ibrahim Yazdi.

But Nahidian is not arrested. He is not even picked
up for questioning, When local police start to investigate
Nahidian, the word comes down from "higher ups" to
"lay off." The police later say that Nahidian s arrest was
blocked on orders from Benjamin Civiletti's Justice
Department and Zbigniew Brzezinskf s National Security
Council.

Within twenty-four hours of the assassination, repre-
sentatives of the NSC, the CIA, and the Justice Depart-
ment, and FBI meet in Civiletti's office where they
decide to place a screen of "national security" over the
Tabatabai case. No more is heard of the case.

But, as the Democratic Party National Convention is
underway in early August, Kambiz Shahraies and the

IKHWAN, U.S.A

177

GAMA organization issue a statement accusing the Car-
ter administration of cooperating with Tabatabai' s assas-
sins.

"The Carter administration's continued commitment
to a policy of alliance with Islamic fundamentalism has
now resulted in conditions of catastrophic proportions,"
the GAMA charges. "Since the overthrow of the govern-
ment of the late Shah and Prime Minister Shahpour
Bakhtiar, U.S. NSC Chief Zbigniew Brzezinski's public
proclamations of support for Islamic fundamentalism as
a 'bulwark against communism' in the Middle East have
not only resulted in the institution of a regime as
barbaric as that of Pol Pot's Cambodian horror and the
seizing of American citizens, but threatens the entire
Middle East with regional war and instability with the
potential for superpower confrontation. . . .

"Unless this alliance is immediately repudiated, Kho-
meini's assassins have a virtual license to kill their
opponents here and abroad. We, the publicly announced
targets of these assassins, urge you to repudiate the
doctrine of an alliance with Islamic fundamentalism,
which does not represent the true tradition of Islam. We
urge you to support a crackdown on the Muslim Broth-
erhood."

GAMA's charges were backed up by the results of an
Executive Intelligence Review investigation of the Ta-
batabai assassination and its implications, Among other
sources, the EIR had gathered information from police
and law enforcement officers and Iranian exiles. Accord-
ing to its information, the Carter administration had
reached an agreement with the Khomeini regime to
allow Khomeini's secret police to act within American
territory against its opponents.

178

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Not only that, but, the sources report, since coming
into office in 1977, the Carter administration has been
protecting a group called the Muslim Students Associa-
tion, headquartered in Plainfield, Indiana, where it has
a terrorist training center.

According to the Washington Post at the time, after the
takeover of the American embassy in Teheran and
seizure of the American hostages, the protected Bahram
Nahidian was in daily telephone contact with the stu-
dents holding the embassy.

He is also in daily contact with the leaders of the
Muslim Student Association. The threat of Muslim ter-
rorism in the United States begins with the doings of the
Muslim Student Association. Within a few days of the
takeover of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, at least 300
Iranian students were secretly filtered into the United
States using phony visas produced with the visa stamp in
the Teheran embassy building.

Many of these "students" were given shelter by
Nahidian and Captain Setoudeh.

But Nahidian is only the point man for the opera-
tional side of the Muslim Student Association. The man
who gives the orders is one Cyrus Hashemi, whose
offices can be found at 9 West 57th Street in New York
City. Along with his brother, Reza Hashemi, Hashemi is
the president of the Fir^t Gulf Bank and Trust, Ltd.,
headquartered in the West Indies. Along with his brother
Reza, Hashemi controls a network of businesses that
includes International Intertrade, the Arabian Trading
Co., ITC Ltd., and the First Arabian Bank.

IKHWAN, U.S. A

179

According to Iranian sources, Hashemi is the chief
organizer for Khomeini's Savama in the United States. It
is his responsibility to supply funds to Savama fronts in
the United States, via branches of his corporate entities
in the Bahamas.

Hashemi is not bashful about his activities, In an
interview earlier this year with the Executive Intelligence
Review, he admitted that he conduited money from Iran
and said that he is also closely associated with the
Muslim Students Association.

Hashemi also confesses to being a close adviser of
Iran's President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr and a friend of
Ibrahim Yazdi. Hashemi provides Teheran with counter-
intelligence on opposition groups in the United States.
For this he has reportedly hired Captain Siamak Day-
himi, a former fleet commander with the Iranian navy,
who is on leave from Khomeini's armed forces; his salary
is paid from Iran. Captain Dayhimi shuttles back and
forth from New York and Rome, where he talks "with
certain Italian agencies/' according to Hashemi, on
supplying Iran with spare parts for its army.

But Dayhimi's chief task is to monitor the activities —
especially those involving possible military matters — of
Iranian exiles in the United* States. That puts Hashemi
in a position of up-to-minute intelligence on the work of
Tabatabai and the Iran Freedom Foundation.

Yet, Hashemi's First Gulf and Trust is permitted to
operate in the United States despite the fact that it is not
registered with any state or federal agency. Nor was its
permission rescinded when the Carter administration
blocked all Iranian assets in November of last year.

The Carter administration has also kept a blind eye

180

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

to the activities of Hashemi's first lieutenant, Nahidian.
Since at least January 1980, the federal agencies have
known that Nahidian was the Savama^s man on the
scene, that he helped direct Islamic fundamentalist
terror in the United States, and that he is a controller of
the Muslim Students Association.

It is public knowledge, for example, that Nahidian
brought $700,000 from Iran— laundered through his rug
business— to pay for arms for his terror squads. Since
November 4, 1979, federal agencies have known about
his relationship to Tabatabi's killer, David Belfield.

Belfield and Nahidian s son were arrested together at
a protest takeover of the Statue of Liberty, three days
after the taking of the American embassy in Teheran,

Nahidian also had official relations with the Iranian
ambassador to the United States. This is revealed in
court documents obtained from Fairfax County, Vir-
ginia, relating to the March 1979 incorporation of "Re-
search and Publications, Inc." Listed as a nonprofit
publishing company based in Falls Church, Virginia,
Research and Publications puts out a journal, entitled
Islamic Revolution, dedicated to spreading the Khomeini

doctrine.

The documents list the director of this corporation as
Ali Agha— who at the time served as Iran's ambassador
to the United States. On the board of directors was
Kawbkab Siddique, a founding member of the Muslim
Students Association. A second Fairfax County court
document, dated June 5, 1979, recorded that the "regis-
tered office" of Research and Publications, Inc., was
located at 2046 Kirby Road, McLean, Virginia.

The building is owned by Bahram Nahidian.

1KHWAN, U.S.A

181

"At firstwe didn't care," said a spokesman for a group
of Indiana citizens who were worried about the goings-
on at a nearby farm in Plainfield, Indiana. "But then a
reporter for the Indianapolis News told us tha't they were
trying to establish a shooting range there. We made
some phone calls to investigate, and we found that some
of the people who set up the center had been involved in
violence in Missouri."

But Concerned Citizens, as the group called itself,
got nowhere in trying to force the Muslim Students
Association to stop the paramilitary training of its mem-
bers on its farm near Plainview. "We tried a federal suit
to stop them," said a member of the group, "but
everything we do tends to get squelched. Somebody,
somewhere, at high levels of our government, doesn't
want this exposed. They are stopping us."

The Muslim Students Association began in 1963.
Since then it has built up a network that either claims or
terrorizes every Tfanian student in the United States, a
business empire, and a paramilitary capability. The
Association purchased its abandoned farm in 1976 at a
price of $375,000. The North American Islamic Trust,
the Association s business arm, reputedly launders tens
of millions of dollars annually for the Brotherhood s use.
The Association also operates such entities as the Islamic
Book Service, the Salem Agricultural Company, and Sun
Systems. At its Islamic Teaching Center in Indianapolis,

it indoctrinates both Arab youth and black American
prisoners in Islamic fundamentalism.

In 1963, the MSA was but a loose association of Arab
students on the nation's campuses; by 1966, it had been
taken over by operatives of the Muslim Brotherhood who

182 HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

r

used their MSA Persian-Speaking Group as their spring-
board. Today the leaders of the Brotherhood's seizure of
the MSA are found in the top ranks of the secular
leadership of Khomeini's Iran: Ibrahim Yazdi, Mustafa
Chamran, and Sadegh Ghotbzadeh.

"Their takeover of the MSA was very subtle, very
deliberate/' said one well-placed source. "They insin-
uated themselves into the ranks of the leadership. Their
mafia made several trips to the Middle East for money.
First, they floated a company in Cincinnati, and Mo-
hammed Shamma went to Saudi Arabia to get cash. He
would discuss their intended political and cultural'
activities, and then he would say something like, 'And,
you know, we also have a private company.' " ,

Just how vast the accumulated power of the Brother-
hood became in the United States under the cover of the
Muslim Students Association is shown by the existence
of a $2 million computer at the so-called Islamic Docu-
mentation Center somewhere in the Indianapolis area.
In 1976 and 1977 the Brotherhood conduited up to $3
million through the Association for the project, through
the person of Youssef Nada, an Ikhwan operative based
in Switzerland.

It is believed that the Documentation Center has
interfaced with the International Documentation Center

F

in Madrid, Spain, run-by Archduke Otto von Hapsburg,
which is the headquarters of the black international Die
Spinne terror networks.

In September 1975, according to documents, Nada
was present at a meeting in Toledo, Ohio, where he met
with three MSA leaders, Jamal Barzinji, Mohammed
Shamma, and Abu Saud. The minutes of the meeting to
plan out the Documentation Center state: "Project to be

IKHWAN, U.S.A

183

completely secret. Middle Eastern governments would
put Muslim Brothers in prison.''

Another document reports: 'It was agreed upon that
the Center will start its work by collecting all available
data concerning the Muslim Brotherhood Movement
(M B.) of Egypt. The M.B. is the leading movement in
the Islamic world and the one which deserves immediate
attention in view of the biased and mutilated information
that has been published since 1952.

"It is of extreme importance to underline the fact
that all the expenses — from the outset of the Center —
must be met by a relatively fixed income emanating
from some secured investment of available funds. ... It
is feared that [failure to do this] . . . would lead to

j a

dangerous consequences, as the information may be
squandered and may land in the hands of antagonistic
groups, who would misuse it and/or violently fall back
on the source of the information.''

Abu Saud, known as the "financial genius'' of the
Muslim Students Association, once described his job
with the organization as "manipulatirfg currency," that
is, putting the finances of the MSA on the level of
respectability. With its several front companies the MSA
is a conduit of secret funds that go to illicit activities.

For example, Abu Saud is the treasurer of the Salam
Agricultural Company, whose president is a close friend
of Ibrahim Yazdi. Incorporated in 1975 in Humansville,
Missouri, the firm is today located in Marshfield. Exten-
sive evidence exists showing that Abu Saud has drafted
letters in the names of others authorizing the transfer of
funds out of the company's account and into personal

184

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

accounts for use in Muslim Brotherhood special opera-
tions worldwide. Millions of dollars are transferred pe-
riodically through the MSA accounts, here and abroad,
and through secret foundations and Swiss banks.

Abu Saud also had a hand in the MSA takeover of
the Sun Systems Company, located in Eureka, Illinois,
which deals with solar heating systems and components.
At the time of the takeover, Sun Systems was in line for
a $250,000 loan from the federal government.

Millions of dollars — most of it untraceable and untax-
able — sloshes through the MSA's front accounts in such
entities as the Islamic Book Service, in Plainfield, Indi-
ana; the Square Deal Laundry in Springfield, Missouri;
International Graphics Printing Service in Brentwood,
Maryland; the Cultural Society in Indianapolis; and the
MSA Islamic Services in Toronto, Canada.

Much of this money finds its way into secret accounts
in Europe, especially in Switzerland. One key money
laundering conduit is the Megal Watch SA, located at 5
Place de LaGare in Bienne, Switzerland. Documents
from the company during one period show that M
Mekki, the company's president, transferred more than
$50,000 to Abu Saud, who turned the money over to his
son-in-law, Dr. Ahmed Elkadi of the Muslim Students
Association. Letters show that the money came from
underground members of the Muslim Brotherhood in

Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

But by far the most intriguing business venture of
the Muslim Students Association is the proposal drafted
by Abu Saud for the North American Islamic Trust, the
MSA's financial arm, for the construction of an Interna-
tional Trade Center at 125th Street in Harlem.

The Carter administration is considering a grant of

1KHWAIM, U.S.A

185

$40 million— $20 million more than the budget esti-
mated by Abu Saud — for the center s construction. It is
not yet known whether this gift has any connection to
the fact that Abu Saud was once a financial adviser to
the Libyan government.

Attached to the plan is a letter from Harlem Con-
gressman Charles Rangel to President Carter which
states:

"As we discussed during our meeting on March 8th
[1978], the concept of an International Trade Center in
Harlem can form the catalyst for a new development in
American international affairs. ... I am convinced that
the Center should be established in Harlem as a public
facility, such as the one in New Orleans. . . .

"The International Trade Center will involve a broad
range of participants from American international busi-
ness firms. It is imperative these firms share your under-
standing of the implications of the program for American
minorities and Third World nations. The project will
also need the continued advice and counsel from the
administration, and the direct participation of Ambassa-
dor Young and Secretaries Kreps and Vance. With
support and assistance from you and your administration,
I am sure the project can become a reality. "

The International Trade Center, however, is not all
that Representative Rangel makes it out to be: a vehicle
to promote industry in Harlem. His model for the
International Trade Center — the New Orleans Interna-
tional Trade Mart — was a shell company, a front for a
corporation named Permindex (Permanent Industrial
Expositions), which has been named as the key agency
responsible in the assassination of John Kennedy, and
which was kicked out of France for its repeated attempts

186

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

to murder President Charles de Gaulle. On the board of
Permindexis Prince Guttierez Spadafora, the sponsor
of Billy Carter s Italian contact points to the Libyan
government.

The president of the New Orleans International
Trade Mart, Clay Shaw, was indicted by New Orleans
District Attorney Jim Garrison for conspiracy in the -
murder of President Kennedy,

There are 50 trade centers around the world. The
marts represent not only huge real estate boondoggles,
but their computerized monitoring of global transporta-
tion is believed by some experts to form the nerve center
for controlling the $200 billion of the annual narcotics
trade.

All of this is enough to demand a congressional investi-
gation into the Muslim Students Association's links to
foreign agencies like the Muslim Brotherhood, and its
activities in the United States. Yet, no such investigation
has been opened. The reason? The Muslim Students
Association, like the Ikhwan in the Arab world, has
friends in high places in the United States. One of them
is Senator Thomas Eagleton, the Democrat from Mis-
souri, who has periodically stepped in to pull strings with
the Department of Immigration and Naturalization to
prevent MSA leaders from being deported, Abu Saud
himself was a beneficiary of the senator s favors.

The most important protector of the Association, is,
of course, the former U.S. attorney general, Ramsey
Clark.

It is likely that Clark has never relinquished the title

IKHWAN, U.S.A.

187

of Special U.S. Envoy to Iran since Jimmy Carter
dispatched him to Teheran in November 1979.

In the summer of 1980, after President Carter had
been forced to break diplomatic ties with Iran and to
forbid American citizens from visiting that country,
former Attorney General Ramsey Clark went to Teheran
again. While there, Clark consorted with Iranian leaders,
including those directly responsible for the holding of
American citizens hostage. When he returned to the
United States, he was not arrested for violating the
President's ban on travel, nor was he ever prosecuted.

Clark is the titular head of an organization in the
United States that, in effect, stands above the MSA.
Among Clark's cohorts are such men as Professor Richard
Falk, Sean McBride of Amnesty International, Dr. ^Nor-
man Forer, and others who represent the unofficial
"liaison committee" between the Carter administration
and the Iranian terrorists.

It was this network that Carter called upon when, in
February 1980 on the eve of the New Hampshire
primary election, he wanted it to appear that he was on
the verge of gaining the release of the hostages. Carter
reversed U.S. 'policy and agreed to the formation of a
United Nations Commission to investigate Iran's griev-
ances against the United States: "An appropriate com-
mission with a carefully defined purpose would be a step
toward resolution of the crisis."

The Iranians had long been demanding a tribunal to
look into the alleged "crimes of the Shah" and the role
of the United States in Iran. President Bani-Sadr and
Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh had said that under certain
conditions the hostages might be set free, provided the

188

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

United States confessed its "guilt" in Iran. By agreeing
to the U.N. Commission, Carter thus invited the world
to witness the spectacle of Washington apologizing for
its foreign policy to a nation ruled by terrorists and
Muslim Brotherhood mullahs.

For the architects of the proposed tribunal, Carter s
U.N. Commission was merely the first step. The pro-
posed kangaroo court was to put on trial not only the
United States and the Shah, but the entire process of
Western industrial cooperation with the Third World.
Professor Richard Falk, Clark's chief associate at Am-
nesty International who supports Khomeini through his

■i

U.S. People s Committee on Iran, named the crime as
industrial development.

"Ramsey Clark and I spoke to many people and
made the case that nuclear technology in an undevel-
oped country will have to involve police methods just by
the nature of the thing/' said Falk.

Clark and Falk's principal collaborator is in Paris,

Nuri Albala, "I know that one of the Iranians' main

grievances that will be presented to the commission is

the sale by the U.S.A. of nuclear power plants. The

Iranians are saying that such a sale is monstrous/'

declared Albala.

During this period, Norman Forer, an unknown

professor who teaches social welfare at the University of

Kansas, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight.

In February, Forer — a former leader of Israel' s Hag-

ganah militia — made a well-publicized trip to Iran with

a delegation of fifty Americans for what he called a

"dialogue of reconciliation" with the terrorists holding

the U.S. embassy. As it turned out, Forer was involved

with Iranian Khomeini sympathizers here. According to

IKHWAN, U.S.A.

_■

189

his wife he had trained some of the student-terrorists
who seized the embassy in November 1979. They were

"his friends," she said.

Dr. Forer' s involvement in terror went back to the
mid-1970s when he was co-director of the American
Committee for Iranian Rights, along with University of
Kansas professor Don Brownstein. Forer had earlier been
active in the civil rights movement, worked with the
Justice Department in the "mediation" of riots and other
problems. In 1977, Forer, Brown, and Nancy Hermeacha
of Houston, Texas, went to Iran searching for a group of
dissident Iranian writers who had allegedly disappeared,
and whose case had become a cause cel&bre of the

Amnesty International.

After leaving Iran — no "writers" showed up — they
went to Paris where they were put in contact with
Abolhassan Bani-Sadr and Sadegh Ghotbzadeh. Both
men were then leaders of the anti-Shah underground.

During the same period Ramsey Clark formed his
Committee for Intellectual and Artistic Freedom in Iran,
which helped the U.S. National Security Council build
up contacts between the Anglo-Americans and the anti-
Shah forces.

After establishing a working relationship with the
Iranian underground, Forer made several tours of West-
ern Europe along with representatives of Amnesty Inter-
national and the International Association of Democratic
Jurists. He established contact with both Ramsey Clark
and Richard Falk, and terrorist networks in Europe
including the Red Brigades and the Baader-Meinhof
Gang. Back in the United States, he became an advisor
to the Iranian Student Association and the Confederation
of Iranian Students, both groups that agitated against

190

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the Shah. It was then that Forer taught the students
who, a few years later, would seize the U.S. embassy.

Right after the taking of hostages, Forer — on the
invitation of his students — returned to Iran again on
December 5, 1979, when he met with the Revolutionary
Council in Teheran, With Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh,
Forer organized a trip to Iran for Reverend William
Sloane Coffin of Clergy and Laity Concerned, Reverend
William Howard of the World Council of Churches, and
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, all of whom have
been supporters of the Iranian revolutionaries since 1977,

Then, on January 17, Forer, again at the request of
the embassy terrorists, organized yet another trip to Iran,
this time to include a delegation of fifty people. The
delegation was chosen, at the Iranians' careful instruc-
tion, to include representatives of U.S. radical and
extremist groups, among them the Detroit Action Coali-
tion, the terrorist American Indian Movement (AIM),
the Brown Berets, the antidraft movement, and various
black radical groups. Many of these black U.S. organi-
zations had earlier tried to visit the Middle East indepen-
dently to make contact with the Palestine Liberation
Organization after the August 1979 resignation of An-
drew Young.

During this same time, Bahram Nahidian was also in
Iran.

Yet, every step of the way, Forer s activities had the
complete cooperation and endorsement of the State
Department!

On
The Brink
Of a New Dark Age

// \ A / e know how to fast/* ranted Ayatollah Kho-
V V meini in response to the possibility of a world-
wide economic boycott in November 1979. "We will eat
the wheat and the barley that we grow in our country.
We will eat meat once a week. Eating meat is not such a
good thing anyway. We are a nation of 35 million people
and many of these people are looking forward to martyr-
dom, We will move with the 35 million. After they have
all been martyred, then they can do what they want with

I* »
ran.

Khomeini* s threat to turn Iran into a nation of
"martyrs" took the insanity of the mass suicide of 900
members of the Jim Jones's Peoples Temple in a Guyana
jungle and raised it to the magnitude of an entire nation.
Only a few months after Khomeini had come to power,

191

192

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the world had been shocked by the awesome disdovery
that the Chinese-sponsored government of Pol Pot had
murdered nearly half the population of Cambodia. Un-
der the careful watch of thousands of Communist
Chinese advisers, the regime of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary
systematically tortured and killed more than 3 million
men, women, and children among Cambodia's 7 million
inhabitants in less than four years.

Numbed observers who entered Cambodia after the
merciful overthrow of the Pol Pot butchers found mass
graves, huge piles of bones, and concentration camps in
the country first used for labor-intensive agriculture and
then simply for mass murder.

Cambodia's capital city of Phnom Penh lay in near

ruins, a total ghost town, with rusted cars lining the

streets, grass growing in the streets, and animals roaming
amid the ruins and rubble. The national library had been
ransacked, all factories slashed to pieces, the bank
bombed, and the nation's currency burned. So great was
the Pol Pot regime's hatred of technology in any form

that even kitchen utensils were destroyed.

The Khomeini regime now threatens to take the
horror of Cambodia, a small nation depopulated by half
by a forced march to the countryside, and bring it to
Iran, a nation that had started on the road to becoming
an industrial power. However, in Iran, genocide is to be
enforced not with bayonets but with the paroxysms of
religious frenzy that gripped the followers of Jim Jones. ,

This is no exaggeration. In an interview with the
French daily Le Monde in December 1979, Iran Presi-
dent Abolhassan Bani-Sadr declared that the policy of
his government is the systematic depopulation of Iran's
cities. "Teheran is a monstrous, parasitical city, which

BRINK OF A NEW DARK AGE

L

193

absorbs by itself half the national consumption, and
poses an abusive burden on the state budget/' he said.

"We will depopulate it by creating in the provinces
industrial and agricultural production units."

Bani-Sadr was asked if that meant that he favored
the Cambodia solution for Iran. He answered: "Yes, but
without the rifles. By faith and persuasion/'

In the nearly two years of Khomeini s rule, the
Cambodianization of Iran has begun. The rule of "faith
and persuasion" is the rule of the 200,000 mullahs who
now control every aspect of daily life in the country. In
Cambodia, the Chinese and Khmer Rouge Guards en-
forced their genocide by telling their victims, "This must

be done. Angkar says so/' In Iran, the mullahs say it is
written in the Koran, or Allah demands it, or the Imam.
In Cambodia, the Angkar is faceless; in Iran, the face is
that of Khomeini. The effect is the same: the brutal
enforcement of a policy of mass degradation.

In Iran today, punishments for violations of the
mullahs' laws are public, after sentencing by the Revo-
lutionary Court. Women are publicly executed for al-
leged acts of adultery or prostitution. Convicted crimi-
nals are put to death in mass street corner executions to,
as one mullah put it, "teach people a lesson." Minor
crimes are dealt with by public floggings; in some cases,
the transgressors are stoned to death.

A couple accused of violating so-called statutes of
Islam against fornication were buried up to their shoul-
ders in the sand and then assaulted from a distance by a
gang of shouting mullahs hurling stones, first small ones
to inflict painful and bloody wounds, and then larger
ones to break bones, and eventually, crush their skulls.

Like the Big Brother of George Orwell's 1984 , the

194

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

mullahs are omnipresent. Iran's radio and television have
now been transformed into what Iranians call "mullavi-
sion." No matter what the hour of the day, the television

carries nothing but the visage of a bearded, turbaned
mullah chanting some prayer or reading from the Koran.
What passes for "news" "in Iran is also read by mullah
announcers. No entertainment — movies, nightclubs, and
dance halls — is permitted. Alcoholic beverages have
been banned, although opium is plentiful. Early in the
revolution, Khomeini banned the playing of any and all
music. Rock n roll, along with the great classical music

of Bach and Beethoven, were labeled the "product of
evil Western satans."

In the summer of 1980 it was announced that Mus-
lims do not need furniture. Within a week all furniture
stores were closed, furniture factories shut down. Similar
decrees have wiped out florists, perfume stores, many
clothing stores, and other areas of consumer goods.
When Khomeini ruled that Muslims were forbidden to
eat meat that had been frozen, the importation of
meat was suddenly halted, and Iranians now face food
shortages.

Cumulatively the impact of these measures has dras-
tically increased unemployment and inflation and forced
a sharp drop in consumption of both essentials and

luxuries.

Ignorance is the backbone of the Khomeini regime.
When the mullahs decided that the loyalty of the armed
forces could not be taken for granted, they decided to
station several mullahs on each military base to oversee
operations. With no military background and totally
ignorant of any science and technology, the mullahs
nevertheless issued the orders to the commanders on the

BRINK OF A NEW DARK ACE 195

L

L

bases. In one case, when told that American space
satellites were passing overhead, the mullahs at the base
told the air force to take off and shoot them down.

As in Cambodia, the nation's cultural heritage is also
being savaged. Bands of fanatic mullahs, believing that
it is their mission to destroy any remnants of pre-Islamic
civilization in Iran, are reported to be roaming through
the countryside with sledge hammers. One by one, they
are attacking the monuments of ancient cultures of Iran,
smashing irreplaceable treasures of the past and ruin-
ing priceless archaeological sites that will now be lost
forever.

Iran today is being ruled by people whose mentality
is that of a medieval horde. The return of Iran to
medieval barbarity is not only condoned but sponsored
by the same people who brought Khomeini to power.

"Think about the Shah fantasizing about nuclear
energy," Ramsey Clark told an interviewer contemp-
tuously. "It was a fantasy because there was no national
reality for nuclear energy in Iran y because it was eco-
nomic planning based on a foreign model, and that was
denounced by Bani-Sadr for over twenty years as an
economist. I know Bani-Sadr very well. His book Oil and
Violence lays these dilemmas out very competently.'*

Thomas Ricks of Georgetown University also de-
scribes Bani-Sadr s program in glowing terms. The Ira-
nian president, says Ricks, will institute a National
Volunteer Service on the Chinese model "to lead the
march out of the cities. The regime is insisting that
urban-born Iranians comprise the leadership of this
movement."

Cambodia shows what such a policy means. Most of
the 3 million Cambodians murdered by the Pol Pot

1%

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

regime were from Phnom Penh. The forced march of the
city's 2 million inhabitants began two days after the
Khmer Rouge entered. Out of those 2 million people
only handfuls survived.

In Iran, this is to be done — "not with rifles, but with
faith and persuasion" — in the name of Islam and an end
to all forms of "Westernization/' The sponsors of Bani-
Sadr in the West justify this policy, because, they claim,
it will end the crime of "ethnocide." That term, says
Richard Falk of Princeton University and founder of the
Committee for Artistic and Intellectual Freedom in Iran,
means the deliberate eradication of traits of culture that
allegedly comprise essential qualities of the Iranian
people. In Falk's view, the industrialization of Iran is
"ethnocide." Conversely, the horrible practice of self-
flagellation during religious holidays by frenzied Shiite
cultists deserves to be preserved as an "authentic"
practice.

In reality, self-flagellation represents the self-de-
graded obsession that would lead a nation to become
"martyrs." The concept of "ethnocide" is a hoax, a term
coined to rationalize the destruction of a nation on behalf
of other interests. For the British interests that brought
Khomeini to power, Iran is to set the precedent for
eradicating the idea that the underdeveloped nations
will ever be brought out of their backward misery and
into the modern industrial world,

"I saw one shut-down construction project after another,
said a traveler to Iran in 1980. "They look like big

carcasses looming over the horizon. Everyone is unem-
ployed."

BRINK OF A NEW DARK AGE

197

Until Khomeini took power, Iran was on its way to
becoming perhaps the premier example of the process of
industrialization in the underdeveloped world. The driv-
ing force of the country's industrialization was oil pro-
duction under the National Iranian Oil Company.

In 1978, NIOC was probably the largest petroleum
company in the world. In the year before the revolution,
it produced over 6 million barrels of oil a day. Construc-
tion was underway to expand output to 7.2 million.

Curent Iranian oil exports are less than 500,000
barrels a day.

The Shah economic advisers were also planning for
the future — when the oil would run out. In 1978, thirty-
two nuclear power plants were either under construction
or on the drawing boards, most of them to come on line
before 1990. France and West Germany held contracts
to construct $30 billion worth of nuclear installations. In
1978 Iran was also talking with the United States about
a $25 billion nuclear package, but the deal was never
signed because of the Carter administration s opposition
to Iranian access to nuclear energy technology. Iran had
also begun to exploit what were thought to be enormous
reserves of nuclear' uranium fuel. Projects on nuclear
fusion energy were the pride of Iran's scientists and
engineers.

Steel was the centerpiece of Iran's transformation
into an industrialized nation. The huge Soviet-built
Aryamehr steelworks in Isfahan were the leading indus-
trial locus in the country. In 1978, Aryamehr was already
producing 1.9 million tons of steel annually, and it was
slated to have an output of 8 million tons a year by 1985,
making it one of the biggest steel plants in the world.
The parent National Iranian Steel Company had also

198

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

begun to construct several other facilities; some of its
plants were using the most advanced high-technology
gas-reduction equipment. By 1983 — had the revolution
not destroyed everything — new plants at Ahwaz, Bandar
Abbas, Isfahan, and other sites would have given Iran a
steel-producing capacity of over 15 million tons a year.

The steel sector was also the university of Iranian
industry. The Isfahan plant was the center for training
skilled and semiskilled workers, engineers, and managers
for the entire nation. "Our income is not only from steel
sales but also from intangible assets of training/' said a

■m

chief of NISC before the revolution. "We have a big
turnover in labor, and that is exactly the aim of the
government— workers learn skills here and take them to
where they are needed. In fact, we run a formal school,
a training center for 7,000 students/'

L

The Sar Cheshmeh Copper Mining Company had
made Iran the sixth largest producer in the world,
producing some 142,000 tons of copper annually in 1979,
with over 400 million tons of copper reserves under the
ground. An entire new city had been constructed at Sar
Cheshmeh. It had a population of 25,000, complete with
mine, smelting, and refining plants, and new plants for
fabrication.

Tabriz, Iran's second city, was the site of the huge
Tabriz Machine Tool Plant. This multibillion-dollar
complex, constructed with French and West German
input, annually produced 10,000 tons of drills, pumps,
lathes, milling machines, compressors, and presses. Since

1966, Tabriz had become the center of the machine-tool
industry, with a tractor factory, -engine plants, truck and
bus assembly plants, and other heavy industry. Thou-

BRINK OF A NEW DARK AGE

199

sands of Iranians flocked to Tabriz to join the growing
industrial labor force. Like Isfahan, the^city produced
thousands of trained managers and workers for the
smaller plants at its vocational school. An additional 10
percent of Iran's labor force was employed in the
automobile industry, under the National Vehicle Manu-
facturing Company,

Within six months, Khomeini s revolution had com-
pletely reversed the work to pull Iran up out of the
Middle Ages. Immediately, $52 billion worth of devel-
opment contracts in a dozen different areas were can-
celed. This led to depression, as hundreds of other,
smaller projects went down the tubes as well.

Among the canceled projects were several nuclear
plants that had been in advanced stages of completion,
worth at least $15 billion; the $1.1 billion Teheran
airport; the $1.3 billion Teheran metro system; the $1.9
billion Sar Cheshmeh copper works, already 90 percent
completed; the Bandar Abbas steel works, valued at $2.9
billion; an enormous $6 billion project for gas injection
and secondary oil recovery in the Iranian oil fields in
Khuzestan; a $3.3 billion Mitsui Japanese plant in Ban-
dar Shahpur for petrochemicals; the second gas pipeline
to the Soviet Union, named Igat-2, worth $3 billion; a
billion-dollar telecommunications system; several entire
railway systems; a new port at Bandar Abbas; oil refiner-
ies, shipbuilding plants, steel works, and electrification
projects.

The heartbeat, of the Iranian economy, the NIOC oil
output, was shut down after May 1979, from the post-
revolutionary peak of 4 million barrels a day to its
present level of about 200,000 barrels a day in exports.

200

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Now, lack of skilled labor and management as a result of
continued purges of the NIOC by Khomeini's Revolu-
tionary Guards has destroyed the company.

Before the revolution, NIOC had begun to install
complex gas injection systems in the older wells to keep
the pressure high enough to permit continued pumping.
This procedure requires some of the most advanced
technology in the oil industry, not to mention qualified
technicians. After the revolution, wells with this technol-
ogy were simply abandoned, and pressure in the wells
had decreased to the point where they may now be
worthless.

According to former experts in the Iranian oil indus-
try, many of Iran's oil wells are now silting up for lack of
maintenance, and new wells may have to be dug if
production is ever resumed. The advanced Iran com-
puter system that once regulated the NIOC operation

has fallen into disrepair.

In industry, the Khomeini regime has managed to
destroy nearly everything the previous regime had built.
Industrial production is now estimated to be 15 percent
of its prerevolutionary level, with the big productive
sectors — steel, mining, small appliance manufacturing —
at a standstill.

At the Alborz Industrial Park outside Qazvin, west of
Teheran, only 14 of 125 factories are currently operating.
Alborz was one of the most ambitious nonoil industrial
development projects, with over $20 billion invested in
more than 200 ventures in manufacturing.

In 1979, the Revolutionary Council proposed to
convert the cooling towers of the two West German
nuclear power stations in Busheir into wheat silos!

Conservative estimates place Iran's unemployment

BRINK OF A NEW DARK AGE

201

rate at 4 million or more. In the cities, a visitor can see
hundreds of able-bodied (and often educated) men on
the streets — without work. Many of the nation's city-
dwellers have turned to opium. This has occurred in part
because the Islamic regime has banned alcohol, but
farmers are also being encouraged to cultivate the poppy,
which brings a high profit oh both the foreign and
domestic market. The Washington Post has reported that
there are at least 2 million opium addicts in Iran — that
is, half the unemployed — with a big increase since the
revolution.

As one Iranian recently described the situation: "The
remaining literate and sensible Iranians feel trapped.
Their own expectations are dimming and they are left
with no alternative but drugs. There was hardly any
opium in the country before the revolution; now it is
everywhere. It reminds me of what the British did in
China in the last century. You look at that population;
they just sit there and watch the country being de-
stroyed, and they become politically passive. That is
what is happening in Iran."

President Bani-Sadr reportedly favors the method
used today in China to deal with the plague of opium
addiction: the government would administer small daily
doses of opium to the addicts much as methadone is
distributed in the United. States, legalizing the lucrative

black market.

Perhaps most horrifying because of its implications
for Iran's future is the purge of Iran's education system
by the medieval mullahs. In June 1980, Mozaffar Par-
towmah, an adviser to Bani-Sadr, speaking at the annual
convention of the Muslim Student Association in Oxford,
Ohio, pledged to eliminate from Iran's universities "all

202

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the infidels/' "After that," he said, "we will move to
clean out the high schools and elementary schools,"

All Iranian universities have been shut down for an
indefinite period until they can be purged of Western
tendencies and made "more Islamic. 1 ' Iran's Deputy Edu-
cation Minister Mohammed Jawad Rajalayn says that the
universities may remain closed for as long as two years;
others say for as long as five years. Special komitehs, or
"purge committees," have been formed in each univer-
sity to boot out those students and professors who are
not "Islamic" enough. Hundreds of professors at the
flagship Teheran University have been driven out.

A new Islamic curriculum is being imposed on all the
universities and schools to "safeguard Iran's young
against deviation and decadence." The curriculum is
specially designed to produce a new generation of Irani-
ans thoroughly indoctrinated in an antiscience, antitech-
nology, fundamentalist world view. History textbooks
are being rewritten to eliminate all references to the
accomplishments of the Pahlavi dynasty and the Shah.
Instead of studying literature and history, grade school
children are taught to repeat mindlessly such chants as
"Khomeini, Khomeini, you are light from God/*

In June 1980, Khomeini appointed a seven-man
committee to cleanse the country's educational system of
of all "imperialist influences" left by the old govern-
ment. "The continuation of this same tendency, which is
an unfortunate catastrophe, is the objective of foreign-
inspired influences," declared Khomeini. "The aim is a
deadly blow against the Islamic Republic, and any
negligence in the proper carrying out of our education
reforms would be outright treason against Islam and our
Islamic Republic/*

BRINK OF A NEW DARK AGE

203

For that, the penalty is death. Several Iranians, for
example, were executed for not throwing away ashtrays
in their government offices that carried symbols of the
Shah s regime.

Opponents of the Khomeini dictatorship continue to
be terrorized through the deployment of fanatical mobs.
On university campuses in particular, anti-Khomeini
forces have been brutally attacked by the Hizbollahi
("Party of God") militia, whose armed gangsters are led
by Ayatollah Beheshti and Rafsanjani. Recruiting amid
the slum dwellers, the Hizbollahi has become the elite
shock troops for the larger, but less disciplined Revolu-
tionary Guard (pasdaran).

What's left of Iran's military is now totally in the
hands of the Muslim Brotherhood. With its sophisticated
technology, the armed forces were a training ground
that produced engineers, scientists, and professionals, as
well as rank and file soldiers, with a good grasp of
modern technology. It was also the bastion of hatred of
Khomeini. The new regime has adopted a merciless
policy of annihilating the officer corps with executions
and mass purges. Thousands of army officers have been
sent to the firing squads or simply murdered in their
offices, and many more are in jail or were forced to flee
the country.

The destruction of the armed forces was carried out

i

by a small clique that took control of the Savak in the
days immediately following the revolution, including
Ibrahim Yazdi, Abbas Laghouti, the Chamran brothers,
General Gharabaghi, and General Fardoust By constant
reshuffles, purges, and changes in command, this team
managed to wear down the armed forces to the point
that its leadership is nonexistent, and the constant exe-

204

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

cutions after discoveries of alleged "plots" have terrified
other officers into remaining silent.

During 1979 and into 1980, Iran underwent a process
of continued, accelerating descent into the depths of full
control by the clergy and the Muslim Brotherhood. The
first to be eliminated in a series of government shakeups
were the old members of the National Front who, by
refusing to support the Bakhtiar government in January
1979, thought they could make a deal with Khomeini.

Leading the pack was Karim Sandjabi, the chairman of
the National Front and the nominal heir of Prime
Minister Mossadegh, who served briefly as Iran's foreign
minister in 1979 until he was replaced by Ibrahim Yazdi.

Gradually, every liberal or democratic member of the
cabinet of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan was uncere-
moniously dumped from office during 1979, until finally
Bazargan himself quit in the wake of the November 1979
takeover of the U.S. embassy. In the same month, NIOC
Chairman Hassan Nazih — who had struggled during
1979 to keep at least some oil flowing — was forced out of
office and eventually into exile. Other members of the
National Front, such as Darious Farouhar and Admiral
Ahmad Madani, were also gradually eased from their
posts and exiled.

To say that Iran is now in the hands of the mullahs is to
say that it has reverted back to feudalism. Sons of the
oligarchical big, land-owning families, the mullahs are
now working to overturn the White Revolution of the
Shah and restore their feudal fiefdoms back to Iran's
land-owning families. That is the power base of the

BRINK OF A NEW DARK AGE

L

205

mullahs — combined with their power over the Iranian
peasant.

What kind of mind does the mullah represent? To
understand that one must first understand the mental
processes of a primitive shepherd who spends a lifetime
of habitual sodomic relations with his herd of goats.
Then one must attempt to conceive what must be
considered the "religious needs" of such a person. The
mullah is the person who services these deviant needs.

The "religion" practiced by these mullahs is a set of

rules for maintaining an orderly, organized system of
mass perversity. That is what explains such rules put
forward by the Ayatollah Khomeini as the following:

"During prayer, one must avoid bending one's head
to the right or the left, toying with one's beard, looking
at the writings of the Koran, or any other writings, or at
the design of a ring. One must also avoid praying when
one feels sleepy, when one feels an urge to urinate or
defecate, or when one is wearing socks that are too
tight."

"The urine and feces of any excrement-eating animal
are impure. This is equally true of the urine and feces of
any animal which has been sexually possessed by a
human; and of the urine and feces of sheep which have
been fed on sow s milk."

"It is preferable, for urinating or defecating, to squat
down in an isolated place; it is also preferable to go into
this place with the left foot first, and come out of it with
the right foot first; it is recommended that one keep his
head covered while evacuating, and have the weight of
his body carried by the left foot."

"If a man becomes aroused by a woman other than

206

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

his wife, but then has intercourse with his own wife, it is
preferable Tor him not to pray if he has sweated; but if
he first has intercourse with his spouse and then with
another woman, he may say his prayers even though he

be in a sweat."

" Every part of the body of a non-Moslem individual
is impure, even the hair on his head and his body hair,
his nails, and all the secretions of his body."

The mullahs did not come to rule in Iran on the basis of
their own power; they were placed in power by men
more evil than they — who would use the depravity of
backwardness for their own ends.

In September 1975, the Aspen Institute held a sym-
posium in Persepolis, Iran. The public side of the
transactions was published years later under the title of
Iran: Past, Present, and Future, In the behind-the-scenes
discussion, the plans for reversing the Shah s industriali-
zation program and for turning Iran into a model dark
ages regime were mapped out. It is a bitter twist of
history that the Shah and his wife Empress Farah Diba
witlessly provided huge amounts of funding to the Aspen
project.

Attending the Persepolis symposium were at least a
dozen members of the Club of Rome, including its
chairman, Aurelio Peccei; Sol Linowitz of Coudert
Brothers law firm; Jacques Freymond of the Institute of
International Studies in Geneva; and Robert O. Ander-
son and Harlan Cleveland, both Aspen Institute officials
and associates of the Club of Rome in the United States.
Other luminaries were also on hand: Charles Yost,
Catherine Bateson, Richard Gardner, Theo Sommer,

BRINK OF A NEW DARK AGE

207

Daniel Yankelovitch, John Oakes of the New York
Times, and the cream of Anglo-American intelligence
specialists on Iran, such as James Bill, Marvin Zonis,
Leonard Binder, Rouhollah Ramazani, and Charles
Issawi.

The Aspen Institute session stressed a single theme:
modernization and industry undermine the "spiritual,
nonmateriar values of ancient Iranian society, and these
values must be preserved above all else. Ehsan Naraghi,
a collaborator of Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, told the
conference:

"Universities and research centers in the West have
all based their studies of development upon a linear,
Westernizing conception of progress. . . . Human sci-
ences, founded on rational objectivity, are today suffer-
ing setbacks and defeats. Is it not important that, having
exalted rationality to ensure human happiness, we should
now be induced to invent a special discipline — psycho-
analysis — to cure the ills arising from an overrationally
organized life that is deprived of its basic relationship
with the nonrational? . . . Why should cultures like ours,
in which man is considered in all his aspects, be deprived
of their substance by following a so-called rational course
at the end of which lies the vast expanse of the non-
rational?"

He continued: "The people have needs and aspira-
tions that are not merely material. . . , The intrusion of
machines into the traditional system may well jeopardize

this creative life."

Naraghfs praise of the "nonrational" was followed
by a similar outburst from Hormaz Farhat of Teheran
University. "America has become more and more aware
of her exaggerated reliance on material values," he told

208

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Aspen's gathering. "Conscious movements have been
made, during the past fifteen years, to refocus the aims
of life to the spiritual. This consciousness has most
prominently manifested itself in the attitude of young
people toward life.

"Let us now focus our attention on what has been
happening in Iran in terms of the point just raised. The

country is going through an enormous social

upheaval. ... I believe that the current revolutionary
state of the nation, when important far-reaching meas-
ures are effectively enacted, provides the right circum-
stances for a national resurgence in the direction of a
moral uprising based on truth and justice."

Spoken three years before the rise of the Khomeini
movement in 1978, these words were more than pro-
phetic. They were the marching orders to the clique
around Khomeini to charge the Shah with destroying the
cultural values of Iran and its Shiite religion by devel-
oping industry and "materialist" values. From 1975

onward, the Aspen Institute developed closer and closer
links to the Iranian ministry of education through well-
placed agents like Manuchehr Ganji, who introduced
both Marvin Zonis'and the Aspen Institute itself to Iran.
Catherine Bateson, of Damavand College in Teheran,
was a critical participant in this strategy, sowing the
seeds of "antimaterialist" rebellion among Iran's youth.

The word also went to Professor Ali Shariati to
intensify his activity. More than anyone else, Shariati
was the guiding light behind the Iranian students and
intellectuals who brought about the Muslim Brotherhood
revolution. Shariati's special ability was to be able to cast
the mystical, antiscience Sufi doctrines into terms that

BRINK OF A NEW DARK AGE

209

might be accepted by modern young people not trained
in religious law. Iran's youth could not be won over
directly to Khomeini s version of Shiism, so it was
necessary to create Ali Shariati, who disguised the Sufi
doctrines in a radical, almost Marxist cloak. Shariati is
the originator of so-called Islamic Marxism.

So radically antimaterialist was Shariati that he saw a
willing acceptance of death as the only legitimate "es-
cape" from the material world! "Doyou not see how
sweetly and peacefully a martyr dies?" he once wrote.
"For those not fully accustomed to their everyday rou-
tine, death is an awesome tragedy, a horrendous cessa-
tion of all things; it is becoming lost in nothingness. But
the one who intends to migrate from himself begins with
death. How great are those men who have heeded this
command and acted accordingly: 'Die before you die/ "

Shariati's father was Aqa Muhammad Taqi Shariati,
who had been part of the British intelligence freemasonic
movement and had started the Center for the Propaga-
tion of Islamic Truth in Mashad, Iran. Of his father,
Shariati says, "He stayed in the city, and strove mightily
to preserve himself with knowledge, love, and jihad in
the midst of the swamp of urban life." The elder
Shariati, he said, was "in the forefront of efforts to bring

the modern-educated youth back to faith and Islam,

delivering them from materialism, worship of the West,

and hostility to religion."

It was the battle cry of the Khomeini revolution.
Traveling often between Paris and Teheran, Shariati
built up a cult following among the youth of Iran. He
introduced Iranian students to the works of Jean-Paul
Sartre, Frantz Fanon, Albert Camus, Jacques Berque,

210

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

and Louis Massignon, all writers of the anticapitalist

existentialist swamp, all funded and guided by the same
Club of Rome networks that gathered at Persepolis.
Fanon's book, The Wretched of the Earth, in which

he argues for anarchy and revolution in the Third World
directed against "the West" and violence for violence's
sake, became Shariati's bible. "Come friends, let us aban-
don Europe/' wrote Shariati. "Let us cease this nauseat-
ing, apish imitation of Europe. Let us leave behind this
Europe that always speaks of humanity but destroys
human beings wherever it finds them."

Through his writings and the publication of his Farsi
journal, Shariati became something of a legend. In 1977,
he was apparently murdered, and although his cult
followers — like Ibrahim Yazdi — blamed the Shah for his
death, it is more likely that he was killed by his backers
in the Savak in order to create a martyr that would spark
a movement around his figure. Were it not for Shariati,
few students in Iran's universities would have followed
the mad Khomeini.

As the Aspen Institute and Shariati began agitating
against the Shah, in early 1977 the Club of Rome's
Peccei, Jacques Freymond, and others began to focus the
Muslim Brotherhood in Western Europe around a new,
synthetic, zero-growth version of Islam. Called "Islam
and the West," this project held its first planning sessions
at Cambridge University in England. Under the guid-
ance of Peccei, Lord Caradon, and Muslim Brotherhood
leader Maarouf Dawalibi, "Islam and the West'' assem-
bled a policy outline on science and technology for the
subversion of Islam. The outline was published in 1979,
and backed by the International Federation of Institutes

BRINK OF A NEW DARK AGE

211

of Advanced Study, headed by Club of Rome member
and NATO science adviser Alexander King.

Islam and the West declared: "We have to return to
a more spiritual conception of life. . . . The first lesson of
Islamic science is its insistence on the notion of a
balanced equilibrium which would not destroy the eco-
logical order of the environment, on which collective
survival finally depends." This argument was used to
attack "Western" science and technological progress in
Europe and North America.

Peccei and the Club of Rome then moved into the
Shah s court. At a November 1977 Lisbon conference
sponsored by the Interreligious Peace Colloquium — an
organization set up by Cyrus Vance and Sol Linowitz —
Peccei conspired with several leading lights of the Mus-
lim Brotherhood movement, particularly with the well-
known Iranian "court philosopher" Seyyed Hossein Nasr
of Teheran University, a personal friend of the Shah.
Also in attendance at this event were Ismail Faruqi of
Temple University in Philadelphia and Khurshid Ah-
mad, former head of the Islamic Foundation in Leicester,
England, and now the minister of planning for Pakistan.

Professor Nasr has been instrumental, along with Dr.
Manucher Ganji, in obtaining money from the Shah's
wife, Farah Diba, and others for a Club of Rome
economic modeling project for Iran. According to Ira-
nian sources, Nasr prevailed upon Teheran University
Chancellor Hushang Nahavandi, an adviser to the Shah-
banou, to funnel millions of dollars to the French Jesuit-
linked theorist Roger Garaudy, for his Institute for the
Dialogue of Civilizations.

The money was designated in part for the Club of

212

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Rome's Mesarovich-Pestel regional planning model for
Iran, under the partial supervision of its French coordi-
nator, Maurice Guernier. Thus, Guernier and Garaudy
became de facto advisers on economic planning and
"development strategy" to the Shah! One of the outlets
they reportedly funded was the Institute for Mediterra-
nean Research, set up in 1977 by Paul Veille, a radical
Paris sociologist, and by Abolhassan Bani-Sadr.

And so, whether he knew it or not, the Shah himself
was funding Bani-Sadr!

Garaudy is an important figure in British intelligence
operations. He is highly influential in post-revolutionary
Iran and among the ultraleft in Algeria, as well as being
one of the closest mentors to Muammar Qaddafi in
Libya. Garaudy is a former Communist Party theoreti-
cian converted to Roman Catholicism through the influ-
ence of Pere Lebret, a Jesuit authority on maintaining
African social structures based on tribal witchcraft.

In 1977, Garaudy formed two institutions, the Inter-
national Institute for the Dialogue of Civilizations and
the University des Mutants in Senegal. In recent months,
he has published a burst of articles in the French
press describing nuclear energy as a "threat to the very
existence of the planet" and castigating "* capitalist
growth" for "breaking the unity between man and
nature/' Garaudy also contributes to the journal Med-
iterranean Peoples, set up in 1977 as a control channel
for British intelligence among "Third World radical"
networks.

In June 1980, Garaudy attended the U.S. -Iran con-
ference in Teheran arranged by Bani-Sadr, featuring
former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark. Before
leaving for Teheran with a European delegation of

BRINK OF A NEW DARK AGE

213

Bertrand Russell followers, Garaudy published an impas-
sioned review praising Bani-Sadr' s latest book, Which
Revolution for Iran? Bani-Sadr's analysis, Garaudy
wrote, is "valuable for its main lines not only for the
entire developing sector, but even for our country, if we
do not want to be late for the coming mutation."
According to Garaudy, Bani-Sadr correctly locates the
Iranian revolution as a " revolt of the people" against the
"Western model of growth," and against the belief that
the "primary task of governments in our modern world
is the one of economic development, of growth and
consumption, of progress, of education."

"We must thank President Bani-Sadr," Garaudy
concludes, "for having, through his beautiful book, cast
a new light on the future we can anticipate if, through
nuclear power, we take a route similar to the one Iran
took through its oil: the route of technocratic despotism
within, of dependence on foreign powers, and of the loss
of our material wealth as well as our soul."

Garaudy's influence over Bani-Sadr was one of many
influences upon Iran's president during his exile in
France. Bani-Sadr himself is a product, neatly packaged,
of the same individuals and institutions who created the
environmentalist movements and the terrorist shock
troops typified by Italy's Red Brigades.

Bani-Sadr's experience is not unique in this respect.
Most of his colleagues presently in Teheran, and much
of the advisory group to Khomeini, were trained, either
like Bani-Sadr in France's sociology-anthropology nests,
or in U.S. -based institutions promoting an "Aquarian
rebellion" against industrial society, such as the Stan-
ford-Berkeley complex in California or the Harvard-MIT
complex in Massachusetts. In all these cases, the post-

214 HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Shah elite-to-be were indoctrinated in hatred of "West-
ern" ways. The simple equation, the Shah equals the
West, became their motivating belief structure;

A slightly earlier "elite" was also trained at the same
institutions, the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary butchers of Cambodia,
whose genocidal "cultural revolution" became the niodel
for what Bani-Sadr and his associates would do in Iran.
Cambodia's president under Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan,
was trained in the same Sorbonne center that produced
Bani-Sadr!

Bani-Sadr' s closest mentors and associates came from
four overlapping institutions: the sociology-anthropology
division of the Centre Nationale des Recherches Scienti-
fiques (CNRS), "Division Six" of the ficole Pratique des
Hautes fitudes (EPHE-6), and the National Institute for

4

Agronomical Research. Of these, the most important is
EPHE-6, which trained Bani-Sadr s thesis adviser, Pro-
fessor George Balandier, a student of African tribal
customs. EPHE-6 is the base for the ecology-antinuclear
movement in France. While studying "agrarian reform"
Maoism under Balandier, Bani-Sadr was influenced di-
rectly or indirectly by the following individuals:

— Paul Veille, "Marxist sociologist," CNRS, Institute
for Mediterranean Research.

— Rene Dumont, a radical agronomist at the CNRS,
who is honorary president of the Friends of the Earth,
and a founder of Eeoropa, the European environmental-
ist umbrella organization. Dumont, a World Bank ad-
viser, has been expelled from both Cuba and Algeria for
being a CIA agent. In 1976, Dumont led an expedition
to Iran to investigate the agricultural system there, and
has since become an adviser to Khomeini.

BRINK OF A NEW DARK ACE

215

— Michel Crozier, an EPHE-6 theorist from Tavis-
tock Institute at Britain's Sussex University, who helped
to coordinate the 1968 destabilization of the Charles de

-L

Gaulle government.

— Jean-Pierre Vigier, a radical scientist at CNRS who
ran the 1968 secretive "Command Center of the Revo-
lution" against de Gaulle.

Other individuals who worked with Bani-Sadr, and
all of whom participated in the British and Israeli
intelligence destabilization of de Gaulle and France
during the 1960s and 1970s, include Michel Foucault,
Jacques Soustelle, Charles Bettelheim, Claude Levi-
Strauss, and the late Henri Corbin.

It is these gentlemen, backed by the Bertrand Russell
Peace Foundation, the Lelio Basso Foundation, the
Transnational Institute, and the Ramsey Clarks and
Richard Falks of the New York Council on Foreign
Relations, whom we have to thank for the current horror

w

in Iran called — by Bani-Sadr — "Cambodianization by
persuasion."

The

Soviet Factor :
'Kim' Philby

The more sinister, hidden features of the Khomeini
revolution begin to emerge when one considers how

^

many powerful intelligence services collaborated to ele-
vate him first to a position of preeminence, and then to
power. The Intelligence Service of Great Britain played
the principal coordinating role drawing on the resources
of American intelligence, Israeli intelligence — and also
Soviet intelligence.

Ultimately, a full investigation of the behind-the-
scenes intrigues which led to the emergence of Kho-
meini, will finally shed light upon the most controversial
and still unresolved 20th century spy mystery: the legend
of "The Third Man/' General Harold Adrian Russell
"Kim" Philby of the KGB, the Soviet Committee on
State Security.

"Kim" Philby, one of the most senior chiefs of British
intelligence, during the Second World War was in

216

THE SOVIET FACTOR

217

charge of training American intelligence officers for the
American Office of Strategic Services, which later be-
came the CIA, Among his pupils was James Jesus
Angleton, who headed the CIA's Counterintelligence
Section until his ouster in 1973.

According to the official legend of the intelligence
services, two suspected Soviet spies within the British
intelligence establishment, Burgess and Maclean, staged
a spectacular defection into the Soviet Union before the
ongoing official British investigation against them could
catch its targets. This occurred in 1951, and for five
years, the world was awash with speculation as to the
identity of the "Third Man" who tipped off Burgess and
Maclean and thus made their defection possible.

In 1955, "Kim" Philby was officially identified as the
"Third Man," — and then forgiven his trespass and re-
assigned to a semi-official intelligence capacity in the
Middle East. During the period 1955 to 1963, "Kim"
Philby was handed Britain's Middle East networks and
assets by his father, St. John Philby, the most accom-
plished Arabist intelligence operative in the history of
the British Empire, When this transfer of power from
father to son was completed, "Kim" Philby moved into
the Soviet Union under cover of "defection."

For many years, Moscow kept Philby in mothballs.
He resurfaced into public prominence at exactly the
same time as the Khomeini revolution was shifted to
high gear by London. In 1978, after many years of
official silent, 'Philby was appointed policy coordinator
for Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula at the
Soviet Foreign Ministry. The next year, 1979, as Kho-
meini took power in Teheran, Philby was promoted to
the rank of General of the KGB. Then in 1980, the
unprecedented occurred: Kim Philby, the master spy,

218

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

granted a unique interview to Izvestia, to signal that he
enjoyed the full confidence of the Soviet government.
That interview was published shortly after the Queen's
Art Curator, Sir Anthony Blunt, was revealed to have
been Kim Philby' s intelligence controller for Britain's
Royal Court.

Sources inside intelligence services have reported
that the "religious fundamentalist" revolutions plotted
for the 1980s were the brainchild of a small team of

strategists including Queen Elizabeth II; her personal
theological adviser Herbert Waddams, chief of the For-
eign Missions Section of the Anglican Church and the
real power in the World Council of Churches; and the
old chiefs of the "Canadian" SOE, including the
old elite team of the "Cambridge Apostles" — Burgess,
Maclean, Philby and Anthony Blunt — now maintaining
intelligence networks in the East Bloc. When some
powerful insiders within England tried to oppose this
insanity of sacerdotal revolutions, exceptional things
occurred. Lord Mountbatten was assassinated; the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury died prematurely, to be replaced
by a man devoted to the cause of "liberation theology*'
and sacerdotal revolutions generally. A program of rap-
prochement between the Anglican Church and the Jesuit
"liberation theology" wing of Roman Catholicism was
worked out and announced, including a proviso in
British law which will for the first time allow Great
Britain's Crown Prince to, marry a Roman Catholic.

Apparently, opponents of this strategy in England
resorted to the ploy of exposing Sir Anthony Blunt as
Philby's controller, thus destroying the myth of Philby
being a long-term dedicated communist who had pene-
trated British intelligence on behalf of the Soviet Union.

THE SOVIET FACTOR 219

"Kim" Philby was now exposed as a "triple" agent, a
British intelligence operative disguised as a "Soviet
double-agent."

Under ordinary circumstances, on the basis of the
Anthony Blunt revelations, the Soviet authorities would
have enough evidence to have Philby taken out and shot.
It did not happen. Instead, the Soviet government
signaled its confidence in Philby by publishing that
unprecedented Izvestia interview. What transpired we
shall probably never find out in detail. In general
outline, however, it is evident that a deal of sorts was
struck between the British and Soviet services, involving
a shared agreement to have Iran destabilized, the Shah
overthrown, Ayatollah Khomeini installed to power and
United States influence removed from Iran. The British
would gain a major strategic bridgehead for the further
launching of their worldwide "sacerdotal revolution";
the Soviets, unimpressed by the power of religious ideas,
would use the mullahs to dismantle American military

power in the Gulf.

Thus, a cynical arrangement was clinched between
the purely military-oriented Soviet High Command and
the more sophisticated British gamemasters whose in-
sight into the uses of the "religious fundamentalist
weapon" is not shared by the crude Soviets. Brzezinski,
for instance, is confident that Islamic fundamentalism
will ultimately undermine and destabilize Soviet cohe-
sion in Central Asia. Brzezinski's Soviet rivals, on the
other hand, are confident that Islamic fundamentalism
will tear apart American military power in the Middle
East. The British, as the go-between, arranged that both
the American NSC and the Soviets would place their
bets in favor of Khomeini and against the Shah,

220

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Thus, the astounding spectacle emerged of four of
the most legendary intelligence services in the world, all
bitter rivals, collaborating to support Khomeini: KBG,

CIA, Israeli Mossad, and British SIS.

The man upon whose personality and reputation this
deal of convenience was clinched is "Kim" Philby, the
SIS gamemaster who betrayed CIA secrets to the KGB,
the teacher and friend of the Mossad's Teddy Kolek, and
the teacher and amour propre of the chief of the CIA's

Israel Desk, James Angleton. Hence the reemergence of

Kim Philby into public life at the same time as the
meteoric rise of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Key to understanding General "Kim" Philby of the
KGB is his father, Harry St. -John Bridger Philby, Great
Britain's chief strategist for the Muslim world for forty
years, and the brain guiding the "Arab Bureau" of
British intelligence throughout his life. The last five
years of St. -John Philby' s life were spent in transferring
his knowledge, connections, and networks to his son
"Kim." Together, Philby pere et fils inhabit the nether
world where Anglo-Jesuit long-term strategic intelli-
gence meets and meshes with the radical Marxist "Buk-
harinite" faction of the Soviet KGB.

St. -John Philby, the father, grew up at the turn of
the century in the rarified intellectual centers of Cam-
bridge, where waning Victorian England was still cele-
brating what it called the "Three Miracles of the 19th
Century." These were three potent creations of British
intelligence, three major ideological projects designed
for use in running the Empire: 1) liberalism as an
international political tendency; 2) orientalist studies as
shaped by Sir Richard Burton and Lord Acton, Queen
Victoria's specialist on religious-ideological warfare; and

THE SOVIET FACTOR

221

3) Marxism as a systematic "belief structure" for man-
aging Jacobin movements against governments and pow-
ers rivaling the Empire.

During the time of St. -John's youth, the scholarly
chiefs of British intelligence were quite open, within
their small circle, in bragging about these achievements.

Following the profile of many of Britain's leading
secret intelligence specialists, St. -John Philby was re-
cruited out of an upper middle class English family and
brought to Cambridge University in 1904. At Cam-
bridge, Philby was introduced into the circles of the top
British Roundtable intelligence personnel, and gravi-
tated into the ranks of the newly established "Cambridge
Fabians." The Fabians, precursors of the Fabian Society,
were spawned at Cambridge as part of the Roundtable's
overall efforts to synthesize a seeming "left-wing" appa-
ratus of the British SIS. Later, after leaving Cambridge,
in the 1920s Philby would become a member of the
Fabian Society of Great Britain.

Revealing his early commitment to the value of cults
and "religious" feeling as a mechanism of social con-
trol — an insight that he would later use in contributing

to the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood in the
Arab world — Philby concentrated his undergraduate re-
search and theses on religion. In one of his youthful
papers, he wrote that religion is "of all conventions the
greatest — so universal, so fundamental a part of the
human system, so strong in its resistance to all opposi-
tion." In another, signal work, Philby compared the
influence of the philosopher Aristotle to that of religious
fundamentalists, and he concluded that religion is in-
deed "far more effective."

This tendency of the young St. -John Philby to em-

222

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

phasize the sacerdotal in political intelligence operations
was later developed into the central operating doctrine
of the Secret Intelligence Service by its renowned chief,
the historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee. During the First
World War and the Versailles Treaty period, Toynbee
served as head of British intelligence in the Balkans and
the Middle East and during World War II, he was chief
of the combined intelligence services for Winston
Churchill.

Arnold Toynbee of Oxford, St -John's direct superior
in the intelligence service, was one of the most promi-
nent popularizers of the doctrine that "in the long sweep
of history," religious ideology, sacerdotal authority, and
the religious sense of identity of the individual are
historical forces far superior to currently prevailing forms
of national identity and national authority. Hence, Toyn-
bee repeatedly argued, if one is to ultimately construct
and control a lasting, stable imperial world order in the
"final analysis/' and in the "long sweep of history/* one
must engineer the intelligence and subversion networks
which will be capable of imposing a sacerdotal authority
and a religious sense of identity upon populations that
are currently ruled by secular authorities and national
senses of identity.

In his final year at Cambridge in 1907, Philby was
ushered into the innermost elite of the epistemplogical
warriors of British intelligence. The "guardian and
guide'* for his graduate year was none other than E. G.
Browne, the successor of Sir Richard Burton, the archi-
tect of the 1905 Persian "revolution/' and the number*
one expert for the British Roundtable on Islamic mysti-
cism, Persia, and Sufism. Together with Wilfrid S. Blunt,
Browne had been the chief sponsor of the granddaddy of

THE SOVIET FACTOR

223

the soon-to-be Muslim Brotherhood, the Scottish Rite
freemasonic cultist and pan-Islamic organizer, Jamaled-
dine al-Afghani. Working intensively with Browne dur-
ing 1907, Philby learned the secrets of Britain's strategic
use of synthetic, radical nationalist, and religious cults.
Philby also polished up his Persian and Hindustani, and
started to learn Urdu. During his career he became
fluent in these languages, as well as Arabic, Turkish, and
several local dialects.

As World War I approached, the young St. -John was
sent to India as a junior political intelligence officer in
the India Office. The years in India served as his training
period; he became involved during those years in proj-
ects to heighten Hindu-Muslim tensions in India, which
later created the basis for dividing the Indian Subconti-
nent into two religiously based entities, India and Paki-
stan. Although he assimilated the "divide and conquer"
strategy of British rule in India, his years with the master
E. G. Browne also taught him the value of encouraging
nationalist movements — even nationalist movements pri-
marily dedicated to removing British rule — as a means
of finally perpetuating British influence.

The years of the World War saw the implementation
of this strategy in its quintessential form by the new
Arab Bureau of the British SIS in Cairo, established
under D. G. Hogarth of Oxford University's Ashmolean
Museum. The best-known operative of the Arab Bureau
in the period was the famous T. E. Lawrence "of
Arabia/' who was busily at work in the Hijaz region of
the western Arabian Peninsula with Sharif Hussein of
Mecca in "the Arab Revolt." That strategy involved the
transfer of large quantities of British gold to the Arab
tribal armies of the Hijaz, in order to encourage an Arab

224

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

independence movement aimed at the disintegration of

the Ottoman Empire.

In 1915, Philby was assigned to Mesopotamia (Iraq),
then under occupation by British and Indian troops, and
under the command of the India Office. Strategically, a
conflict in policy had begun to develop between the
India Office and the Arab Bureau, Guided by Hogarth,
Gertrude Bell, and Lawrence, the Arab Bureau was
encouraging the growth of British-controlled Muslim
fundamentalism and Arab nationalism, while the some-
what more conservative government of India and certain
factions of the British India Office were a bit more
reluctant to spark off a Muslim rebellion, fearing that it
could spread unchecked into India from the Arab world
and touch off a revolt against British rule there. For his
part, in Iraq, Philby gradually gravitated to the view of
the Arab Bureau. He was helped along by the guidance
of Gertrude Bell, a hardy female traveler for the British
SIS who was one of the leading lights of London's policy
toward the Arab world. For years afterward, Bell and

Philby would be confidantes.

From 1918 until his death more than forty years
later, St.-John Philby was the chief of operations for
British intelligence in Saudi Arabia.

At the beginning, Philby delved into the mysteries of
tribal politics in the Arabian Peninsula. Soon after his
assignment to the Arab world, Philby had familiarized
himself with every nook and cranny in Arabia, and by
the time of his death he became known as the premier
trailblazer in its desert sands. His tombstone reads:
"Greatest of the Arabian Explorers."

In his first years in Arabia, he carefully studied the
most powerful Arabian movement, that of the Wahhabi

THE SOVIET FACTOR

sect of fundamentalist Islam, then headed by Abdel-Aziz
ibn Saud, the eventual founder of Saudi Arabia in the
1920s, For over thirty years, Philby was the liaison
between London and King Saud. At first, Philby sought
to harmonize the objectives of the Saudi family in
eastern Arabia with the already established Hijaz move-
ment of the Hashemite clan of the Sharif of Mecca,

Hussein, who was then a paid agent of the Arab Bureau.
Increasingly, however, Philby argued in British councils
that London ought to throw its support behind ibn Saud,
and eventually Saudi military victories in central Arabia
won his argument for him.

The military strength of the Saudi family was based
on a puritanical desert fundamentalist movement called
the Ikhwan. Comprised of tribal leaders organized into
clan militia and zealous in their Islamic faith, Ikhwan
troops became the scourge of Arabia — with British arms.
In later years, King Saud of Saudi Arabia came into

conflict with the Ikhwan, and forced them to disband in
the 1930s. Yet many believe that the Ikhwan, after its
dissolution, continued to exist as a secret asset of British
intelligence in Saudi Arabia, retaining its structure to
this day. It is also believed that the current Saudi
National Guard, the elite force commanded by the
Muslim Brotherhood's Prince Abdullah ibn Abdel-Aziz,
is comprised primarily out of the core group that formed

the Ikhwan back in the 1930s.

In March 1919, Philby was appointed to the impor-
tant Interdepartmental Eastern Committee established
by Lord Curzon, and in early 1921, Philby and Lawrence
lobbied with success for the formation of a separate
Middle East Department in the Colonial Office. In-
volved then in the transactions of the British-Zionist

226

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

collaboration and the various ups and downs of London's
battle against the French and the U.S. S R. in the Middle
East, Philby scuttled back and forth across Arabia living
a dissolute life, adopting Muslim customs (including
taking several wives), and eventually feigning conversion
to Islam. In this period, from the close of World War I to
the onset of World War II, not a single event of any
importance happened in Saudi Arabia without Philby's
knowledge and often approval. For instance, the secur-
ing by Standard Oil of California of the contract to
explore for oil in Saudi Arabia, which eventually estab-
lished the Arabian-American Oil Company (Aramco),
was accomplished by the personal influence of Philby in

the Saudi Court.

Politically, Philby established for himself something
of a reputation of an oddball During World War II, he
was openly pro-Hitler, often calling for the British to
halt the war against Germany, and joining the fascist
Peoples Party in England under Lord Tavistock. At the
same time, however, Philby carefully cultivated the guise
of an "anti-imperialist," arguing against the continua-
tion of the empire after the war and supporting nation-
alist causes, especially Arab nationalism. It was at this
time, during and after World War II, that Philby began
to cultivate covert relations with the Soviet Union.
Stalin, of course, had no illusions about who Philby was
or what he represented, but to the extent that Philby
appeared to seek to dismantle the British Empire, Stalin
saw this as grounds for collaboration.

But Philby's contacts into the U.S.S.R. operated
through other, older and more subtle channels. As a
leading member of the Orientalists' Congress, Philby
came into close contact with leading Soviet scholars on

THE SOVIET FACTOR 227

Islam, the Orient, the Arab world, and India. The
Orientalists' Congress, held every few years in a different
world capital, was a movement established in the 1880s

H F - - ■

and continued through the twentieth century as a joint
project of British SIS and the Jesuits.

Later, before and after World War II, one of Philby's
mentors and sponsors was MonseigneurGonzague Ryck-
mans, a Jesuit priest from the Louvain University in
Belgium. Ryckmans was one of the guiding lights of the
Orientalists' movement and the editor of he Museon of
Louvain. Together with Ryckmans' son Jacques, the
Philby-Ryckmans combination was almost perfectly sym-
bolic of the Anglo-Jesuit strategic marriage in the Middle
East, and the trio often toured Saudi Arabia together.

Part of what Philby and the Ryckmans family sought
during this time was evidence of the existence of certain
pre-Islamic Arabian movements. Exploring archeological
sites and compiling massive notes, Philby and Ryckmans
were looking for concrete "artifacts'' on which to base
the creation of a new, anti-Islamic movement linked to
the ancient cult goddesses— like the cult of Allat which
prevailed in Arabia before the coming of the Prophet
Mohammed. It was cults such as these that fed into the
mystical movements, and other anti-Islamic cults under

Philby's supervision.

The Orientalists' Congress had come into existence
precisely as Afghani's pan-Islamic movement was getting
off the ground, arid the movement called the "Indissolu-
ble Bond of Afghani and Abduh" was spawning British
freemasonic secret societies all over the Islamic world.
Around the turn of the century, Afghani himself often
visited Czarist Russia, where he came into contact with
the forces in Russia that eventually became the leader-

228

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

ship of the Trotskyite and Bukharinite wings of the
Soviet Communist movement, the anarchists, the pan-
Slav movement, and — especially — Russian scholars and

specialists in Islam. Far from being exterminated during

the Russian Revolution, Afghani's Russian networks sur-
vived to become Philby' s collaborators.

Now, what of St.-John Philby's son?

Harold Adrian Russell Philby, born in India during
his father's SIS service there, was nicknamed "Kim"
after the boy in Rudyard Kipling's novel who goes to
work for British intelligence to learn the "Great Game"

of battling Russia for control of the Eurasian land mass.
In the 1930s, Philby followed his father's footsteps and
enrolled in Cambridge University's Trinity College.
There, Kim Philby joined some friends in the secret
society known as the Apostles Club. Among his col-
leagues were Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, and An-
thony Blunt — the latter a descendent of the famous
Wilfrid S. Blunt of the nineteenth century Blunt-Browne
team.

With his father s approval, Kim Philby was tracked
into the communist and socialist movement during his
college days, and he openly espoused the most radical
social-reform and liberal causes of the pro-Soviet move-
ment during this period. During a stay in Vienna,
Austria, Kim Philby was allegedly recruited into a Soviet
intelligence network in the early 1930s. Nevertheless,
after a brief tour in Spain as a foreign correspondent — a
job secured for him by his father — he was admitted into
the British foreign intelligence service MI-6. At various
points during his career, Kim Philby ran the Iberian
Desk of MI-6, its Soviet Desk and, in the formative

THE SOVIET FACTOR

229

period of the CIA after World War II, was station chief
for British intelligence in Washington, D.C.

In 1951, Philby was rumored to be involved in the
defection of two of his friends and colleagues in MI-6,
Burgess and Maclean, to the U.S.S.R. Despite these
rumors, Philby was allowed to remain in active service in
MI-6, during which period he was alleged to have been
transmitting British and American secrets to Moscow.
(In fact, while Philby undoubtedly delivered CIA secret
information to the U.S.S.R., it is unlikely that he be-
trayed his British command by leaking anything of value
to them! )

In 1955, however, Philby was publicly named as
the "Third Man" in the spy scandal of Burgess and
Maclean, and demoted from his post in MI-6 in London
to the position of intelligence "stringer" in Beirut. In
this position, Kim Philby continued to serve as a liaison
between MI-6, the KGB, and various Arab and Israeli
secret services. Ostensibly, after 1955 Philby was the
Middle East correspondent of the London Observer and

The Economist.

As soon as he arrived in Beirut, "Kim" Philby was
introduced by St.-John Philby to the entire range of the
father s Middle East contacts, from Saudi sheikhs and
Jordanian Arab Legion commanders to Israeli Mossad
agents and Lebanese spooks of all sorts.

Together, Philby and Philby traveled the Middle
East. From 1955 until September I960, St.-John Philby
showed his son the ropes, in particular introducing Kim
to the British Muslim Brotherhood networks in the Arab
world, and to the extensive intelligence areas in which
the British and Soviet intelligence services cooperated in

230 HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

_i

supporting "leftist" and communist movements. The
younger Philby soon became an intimate of various Arab
Communist parties, the Iranian TudeH Party, Lebanese

leftist and Nasserite movements, and the Arab Baath
Socialist Party faction of sMiiebelA^Aq, In festch of these

movements, British a 3<^;life^^

and even effective overall OGtitjxjl.

In September 1960 Harry St>John Bridger Philby
died. His last words were, "I am bored,"

"Kim" Philby continued to work as British intelli-
gence liaison in Beirut, constantly passing information
(and, often, disinformation) to the KGB. In 1962-1963,
the Middle East entered a serious crisis, In Iran, the

■ ■■

i

British had launched their destabilization of the Shah,
triggering riots and anti-Shah outbursts by backers of the
Ayatollah Khomeini. Then, in January 1963; Kim Philby
disappeared while on his way to a diplomatic party in
Beirut. In the following month, February 8, the Baath
party seized power in Syria; then, on March 8, the Iraqi
government was overthrown by the same Baath party
organization. Syria and Iraq began immediate talk about
political unity, and the Anglo-American press predicted
the imminent collapse of the pro-Western regimes in
Jordan and Saudi Arabia. In the midst of this crisis,
which reached panic proportions in certain Western
capitals — particularly France, Italy, West Germany, and
Japan — "Kim'* Philby suddenly turned up, in April
1963, in Moscow. The master British spy and triple-
agent, amid a Middle East crisis partly of his own
making, had managed to "launder" himself into the
U S S R, itself.

From that point on, Philby has served as an active
officer of the Soviet KGB. In 1978, when the Khomeini

THE SOVIET FACTOR

231

revolution was already underway in Iran, The Journal,
publication of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked World
Muslim League in Saudi Arabia, reported Philby's Soviet

Foreign Ministry position as coordinator of policy toward
Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula. In the
following year, Philby was promoted, becoming General
Philby of the KGB — the rank he holds today. During this
period, the old Cambridge Apostle and Dark Ages
activist exercised an untoward influence on Soviet policy
toward the Khomeini revolution and the Arab world's
Muslim Brotherhood.

The matter of Kim Philby, the "Third Man," has not yet
been concluded as far as the intelligence establishment
of the U.S.A. is concerned. The file remains open in
more than one sense.

His defection in 1963 still raises questions which
today are reflected in the ongoing search for the mythical
" KGB mole" in high places in Washington. Other
questions, raised about the "failure" of American intelli-
gence to prevent Khomeini s rise to power, intersect the
matter relating to the * ' KGB mole, ' * What is the truth?

In general outline, the solution to this problem will
eventually demonstrate the following: there is not, and
there never was, a "KGB mole" problem as such.
Instead, there is a certain grouping within the American
intelligence community which from its inception during
World War II, has been controlled by the British-Cana-
dian-dominated Special Operations Executive of war-
time fame. This grouping is clustered around certain
powerful families and financial fortunes on the East
Coast whose intelligence operating arm was shaped by

232

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

the networks once created by Sir William Stephenson.
These include the old Socialist Party, Jewish Labor
Committee networks; the intelligence networks around
Philby-trained James Jesus Angleton, Jay Lovestdne,
Irving Brown, Irving Suall of the Anti-Defamation
League; the Fitzroy Maclean networks around the
United Nations; the Canadian Jesuits* networks which
run "liberation theology" operations in Latin America;
the reascendent Jabotinsky-Revisionist wing in the Zion-
ist movement; and the Muslim Brotherhood in Islam.

The British controllers of this U.S.-based network
also control, in the Soviet Union, various parts of the
Soviet intelligence establishment, including the IMEMO
thinktank where Donald Maclean was employed — as
well as those parts of the KGB and the Foreign Ministry
where Philby is employed. These are the sectors of the
Soviet administration obsessed with "Third World" lib*
eration movement and class-struggle projects.

What seems to be an "intelligence leak" problem
attributable to some mysterious "KGB mole," will in
fact prove to be an arrangement whereby the preponder-
ant section of U.S. intelligence, and a section of Soviet
intelligence, are both controlled by the same overriding
entity, the SOE-" Canadian" grouping within British
intelligence. This would explain, among other things,
how a fire-eating anticommunist like Mr. Brzezinski, a
Canadian-Jesuit-trained operative, collaborated with the
KGB to install Khomeini in power. The information is all
buried in the yet-to-be-closed file of Harold Adrian
Russell "Kim" Philby, the "Third Man."

Index

Aaron, David, 46,56

Abdel-Aziz, King, 171,225

Abdel-Aziz, Prince Abdullah ibn,

170-171,225
Abdul-Baha,116,117

Abduh, Mohammed, 122, 135-139,
141-143; Treatise of Mystical In-
spirations, 123

Acton, Lord, 220

Ad-Din, Nasir, 126, 127

Adham, Kamal, 171

Afghani, Jamaleddine aK, 115, 118-
119, 121-127, 134-136, 138, 140-
141,143, 223, 227-228

Aflaq, Michel, 230

Agha,Ali, 74,176, 180

Ahmad, Khurshid,211

Aibala, Nuri, 188

Alexander the Great, 105

Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya (The Islamic

Group), 167,168

Ali, Miza Husayn (see Bahaullah)

Ali, Muazzam, 162

Allat (goddess), 103, 106, 110,227

Al-Manar Party, 143

Al Tafkir al Hijra (Repentance and
Retreat), 167

Al-Urwah al-Wuthkah (see Indisso-
luble Bond)

Amal, al-,78,167

American Committee for Iranian
Rights, 189

American Friends Service Commit-
tee, 23

Amin, Idi, 8

Amini, Ali, 86, 168

Amouzegar, Jamshid, 28, 32

Anderson, Robert O., 161, 206

Angleton, James Jesus, 217, 220, 232

Amnesty International, 16, 22-23,
33,117,187-189

Anglo-Arab Association, 159

Anti-Defamation League of B'nai
B*rith,232

Apostles Club, 228 •

Arab-British Center, 156, 160

Arab-British Charitable Trust, 159

Arab Bureau, 129-131, 133, 156,
220, 223-225

Arabi, Ibnal-, 111

Arab League, 164

Arbotov, Georgi, 232

Ashari, Abu-al-Hasan Ali Bin Ismail
al-, 102, 107-108

Aristotle, 108, 135, 221

Aspen Institute, 9, 16, 161, 206-208,

210

Assad, Colonel Rifaat, 165
Assad, Hafez, 151-152, 154, 165-166
Ataturk, Justafa Kamal, 139, 140-
142, 153

Azzam, Abdel-Rahman, 133, 144

Azzam, Salam, 160, 162

Azhari, General Gholam Reza, 40

233

234

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Badri, Abdul, All, 49
Baghdadi, Sheikh Khalidal-, 119
Bahai, 115-H8, 120-122, 125
Bahaullah (Miza Husayn AH), 115-
116,121

Bakhtiar, Shahpour, 43-48, 52, 86,
177,204

Bakhtiar, Teymour, 84-85, 87, 89-90
Balandier, George, 214
Balfour, Arthur Lord, 128
Ball, George, 41-42, 67
Bani-Sadr, Abolhassan, 24-25, 65,
70-71, 92, 153, 179, 187, 189, 192-
193, 195-196, 201, 207, 212, 214-
215; Which Revolution for Iran?,
195, 213; Oil and Violence, 192
Banna, Abdel-Rahman al-, 143
Banna, Hasan al-, 100, 122, 141-142,

145-147,155,167
Baqir, Mirza Muhammed, 121, 124
Barzinji, Jama 1, 182
Bateson, Catherine, 206, 208
Bazargan, Mehdi, 48, 52, 204
Beaumont, Sir Richard, 160

Beeley, Sir Harold, 159-160
Beheshti, Ayatollah, 70, 203
Belfield, David (Daoud Salahud-

din), 76,174-176,180
Bell, Gertrude, 224
Bernhard, Prince, 161
Berque, Jacques, 209
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation,

10, 23,27, 35,215
Bettelheim, Charles, 215
Bhutto, ZulfikarAli, 155, 162
Bilderberg Society, 41, 157, 161
Bill, James, 3, 46, 207
Binder, Leonard, 207
Blavatsky, Madame, 115
Blunt, Sir Anthony, 218*219, 228
Blunt, Wilfred Scawen, 101, 119,

121,124-126, 133,222, 228
Boisard, Marcel, 161
Boumedienne, Houari, 18
Bowie, Robert, 3

Brezhnev, Leonid, 1. 37-38

British Broadcasting Corporation, 9,

31,34, 38-41,79, 85
British Petroleum, 9, 17, 34-37
Brohi,A.K., 162
Bronfman, Edgar, 7
Brown, Harold, 3, 11
Brown, Irving, 232
Browne, E.G., 101, 116, 119-121,

124, 130, 222-223, 228; Persian

Revolution, A Year Among the

Persians, 121
Brownstein, Don, 188
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, 114
The Last Days of Pompeii, 1 14
Burgess, Guy, 217-218, 228-229, 232
Burton, Sir Richard, 220, 222
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 3, 5-9, 11, 13,

23, 46, 51, 61, 66, 68, 71, 157, 162,

172,176-177,219,232

Camus, Albert, 209
Caradon, Lord (Hugh Foot), 160,
210

Carrington, Lord, 70

Carter, Billy, 186

Carter, Hodding, Jr., 75

Carter, James E., 1-5, 7, 13, 15, 17,
23, 25, 28, 41-42, 48, 50-51, 55, 57,
60-71, 74-75, 77, 177-179, 184-
185, 188, 197

Cecil, Robert, 128, 134

Center for the Propagation of Is-
lamic Truth, 209

Central Intelligence Agency, 3-4, 7,
17-18, 25, 38, 43, 48, 56, 59, 60,
68, 80-82, 84, 86, 214, 217, 220,
229

Centra] Treaty Organization, 45

Centre Nationale des Recherches

Scientifiques (CNRS), 214-215
Chalfont, Lord, 31

Chamran, Justafa, 56-58, 78-79, 182,

203

INDEX

235

Charlemagne, 9
Charteris, Marin, 159
Christopher, Warren, 23, 46, 56, 67
Churchill, Winston, 129, 222
Civiletti, Benjamin, 176, 212
Clark, Ramsey, 3, 22-23, 43, 46-48,

56,58-59, 61,186-189
Clayton, General Ilywyd, 159
Clergy and Laity Concerned, 190

Cleveland, Harlan, 206 .
Club of Rome, 160, 206,210-212
Coffin, Rev. William Sloane, 190
Committee for Intellectual and Ar-
tistic Freedom in Iran, 189, 196
Committee on Union and Progress,
140

Concerned Citizens, 181
Confederation of Iranian Students,

189

Cottam, Richard, 3, 24-25, 46, 86
Council for the Advancement of

Arab-British Understanding

(CAABU),156, 158-159
Council on Foreign Relations {New

York), 2, 9, 11-12, 43, 58, 215;

1980s Project, &, 22
Cromer, Lord, 130, 134, 137, 156
Crozier, Michel, 215
Curzon, Lord, 128-130, 134,225

Daneshi, Hossein, 39-40
Dante Alighieri, 94
Darakhshesh, Mohammed, 25,86
Dawalibi, M aaroui,
Dayhimi, Siamak, 17$
de Gaulle, Charles, 44, 90, 166, 186,
215

de la Gorce, Paul Marie, 33, 64
Deri an, Patricia, 23
Dilia, Munir, al-, 147

Disraeli, Benjamin, 114, 120
Djam, General Feredoun, 45, 47
Duke, Sir Charles, 160
Dumont,Rene\214

Duncan, Charles, 3
Dunne, J. Heyworth, 144

Eagleton, Sen. Thomas, 186
East India Company, 112
Eban, Abba, 159

Ecole Pratique des Hautes fitudes

(EPHE),214
Ecoropa, 214

Ecumenical Council of Churches,
161

Elkadi, Dr. Ah men, 184
Elizabeth II, Queen, 159, 218
Elmessari, Sheikh, 167
Erdman, Paul, 2; Crashof'79, 2
Eritrean Liberation Front, 168
European Monetary Fund (EMF),
13

European Monetary System (EMS),

13-15, 19,56,63
Evans, Trevor, 147

Fabian Society, 221
Fahd, Crown Prince (Saudi), 170
Faisal, King, 18, 170
Faisal, Prince Muhammad bin, 171-
172

Falk, Richard, 3, 22, 187-189, 196
Fanon, Frantz, 209; Wretched of

the Earth ,210
Farabi, air, 102

Fardoust, General Hossein, 29-30,

49,52,78,85, 175,203
Earhat, Hormaz, 207
Farduhar, Darious, 44, 204
Farouq, King of Egypt, 144-145
Faruqi, Ismail, 211
Fedayeen-e Islam {see also Muslim

Brotherhood), 24, 72, 77, 82, 92
Federal Bureau of Investigation

(FBI), 176
Federal Emergency Management

Agency (FEM A), 62
Foot, Hugh (see Lord Caradon)

T

236

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Foucault, Michel, 215
Forer, Norman, 187-190
Francois- Poncet, Jean, 63
Freemasons (see Scottish Rite)
Freymond, Jacques, 206, 210
Friends of the Earth, 214
Fuad, King of Egypt, 1 44
Furlonge, Sir Geoffrey, 160

Ganji, Manucher, 208, 21 1

Garaudy, Roger, 211-213

Gardner, Richard, 206

Garrison, Jim, 186

Gelb, Leslie, 11

Gemayel, Pierre, 144

Gharabaghi, General, 49, 51, 52, 203

Ghazali, a!-, 102, 108-110, 138-9,
142, 157; Tahafut al-Falasifah
(The Destruction of the Philoso-
phers), 107-108

Ghotbzadeh, Sadeg4, 24-26, 47, 68,
96,182, 187-190

Giscard d'Estaing, Valery, 14, 43

Glubb Pasha, Sir John Bagot, 159

Gobineau, Joseph de, 120; Religion
and Philosophy in Central Asia,
120

Gordon, General Charles, 133
Guernier, Maurice, 212
Giimbleton, Bishop Thomas, 190

Habibollahi, Admiral Kamal, 52
Haider, Mohammed, 165-166
Haig, General Alexander, 3, 50
Hansen, George, 60
Hapsburg, Otto von, 182
Harriman, Averell, 67, 85-86
Hashemi, Cyrus, 178-180
Hashemi, Reza, 178
Hermeacha, Nancy, 189
Helms, Richard, 18
Hizbollahi (Party of God), 77, 203

Hogarth, Dr. David George, 129,

223-224
Hourani, Albert, 159
Hoveyda, Abbas Amir, 28
Hoveyda, Feredoun, 45
Howard, Rev. William, 190
Hudaybi, Hasan Ismail al-, 147
Hugh Foot (see Lord Caradon)
Hussaini, Sayyed al- (see Afghani,

al-)

Hussein, Saddam, 154
Hussein, Sharif of Mecca, 130-131,
223, 225

Husseini, Haj Amin al-, 144
Huxley, Aldous, 115
Huyser, General Robert, 3, 50-52,
55-56

Ibn Sina, 102

Idris I, King of Libya, 133

Ikhwan al-Muslimun (see Muslim

Brotherhood)
Indissoluble Bond, The (Al-Urwah

al-Wuthkah), 124, 136, 138-139,

227

Institute for Islamic Studies, 160,
174

Institute for Mediterranean Re-
search, 212, 214

Institute for Policy Studies, 23
Institute for the Dialogue of Civili-
zations, 211-212
Institute of International Studies
(Geneva), 206

International Association of Demo-
cratic Jurists, 24, 189

International Documentation Cen-
ter, 182

International Federation of Insti-
tutes of Advanced Study, 161,
-210-211

International Institute of Strategic
Studies (IISS), 9 "

INDEX

237

I nternat ional M onetary Fund

(IMF), 12-13, 15, 19,63
Interreligious Peace Colloquium,

211

Iranian Students Association, 26,
189

Iranian Workers Organization, 31
Iran Freedom Foundation, 76, 173-

174, 179
Iran Revolutionary Party (IRP)
Iran Task Force, 3

Isis-Uranus Temple of the Golden

Dawn, 1 15
Islam and the West (International),

160-161

Islamic Council of Europe, 160, 162
Islamic Documentation Center,

182-183
Islamic Foundation, 21 1

Islamic Group, the (see Al Gamaa al-
Islamiyya)

Islamic Institute for Defense Tech-
nology, 162

Islamic Press Union (see Islamic
Council of Europe)

Islamic Republican Party, 69-71, 77

Islamic Society, 139
Islamic Solidarity Fund, 161

Ishaq,Adib, 125
Issawi, Charles, 207

Jabotinsky, Vladimir, 232

Jamaat-i-Islami (see also Muslim
Brotherhood), 155

Javits, Jacob, 71

Jesuits (see Society of Jesus)

Johnson, Lyndon, 23

Jonas, Hans, 110; The Gnostic Reli-
gion, 110

Jones, Reverend Jim, 32, 191-192

Kashani,Ayatollah, 80-84
Kau, Randy, 62

Kennedy, Edward, 65
Kennedy, John F., 17, 85-87, 185-
186

KGB, 216-217, 220, 229-232
Khalid, King, 19

Khalkhali, Ayatollah, 24, 72-73, 77,
92-93, 95-96

Khan,Malkan, 124,126-127

Khan, Yakub, 124

Khoini, Ayatollah, 77

Khomeini, Ahmad, 91

Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 1-4,
7, 9-11, 16, 18, 21, 24-27, 30-32,
37-40, 42-53, 55-56, 64, 67, 69-71,
73-79, 81-82, 84-85, 87-99, 101,
106-107, 117-118, 138-139, 145,
158, 161, 164, 169-171, 174-179,
182, 188, 191-197, 199-200, 202-
205, 208, 210, 213-214, 216-217,
219-220, 230-232; Green Book 99

Khosrowdad, General, 51
KiHearn,Lord, 159
King Alexander, 211
Kipling, Rudyard,228
Kishk, Sheikh, 169-170
Kissinger, Henry, 16-19, 59, 65
Kolek, Teddy, 220
Komer, Robert W., 17, 67
Komitehs (see Revolutionary Com-
mittees)
Kreps, Juanita, 185

I ,abour Middle East Council, 159
Laghouti, Abbas, 203
Laingen, Bruce, 61
LaRouche, Lyndon, Jr. , 44
Lawrence, T.E., 101, 129-130, 139,

159,223-225
League of Arab States, 133
Lebret, Pere,212
Lelio Basso Foundation, 23, 215
Lewis, Bernard, 3, 157, 165
Levant Company, 112

238

HOSTAGE TO KHOMEINI

Levi-Strauss, Claude, 215
Linowitz, Sol, 206, 211
Lovestone, Jay, 232

Madani, Admiral Ahmad, 204
Mahdi, Mohammed al-, 133
Maitland, Sir Donald, 159
Maksoud, Clovis, 164
Malone, Joseph, 43
Mamun, Caliph, 105
Mansfield, Peter, 160
Man sour, Ali, 90
Mansour, Captain, 71, 75
Massignon, Louis, 210
Mattei, Enrico, 17, 85 (note)
Maclean, DonaId.217-218, 228-229,
232

Maclean, Fitzroy, 232
McBride,Sean, 22, 187
Mediterranean People s Congress,
24

Metaphysical Society, 114
Mekki,M,,184

Middle East Center for Arabic Stud-
ies ( M EC AS ), 156,159

Middle East Treaty Organization
(METO),7

Mill, John Stuart, 135; Totalitarian*

ism, Liberty and Representative

Government, 146
Misr al-Fatat (see Young Egypt)
Mohammed the Prophet, 97-98,

100,102-104,107,227
Mondale, Walter, 7, 15
Montague, Edwin, 128-129
Mossad, 17-18, 22, 77-7% 84*85,

220,229

Mossadegh, Mohammed, 37, 44, 80r

82,204
Mountbatten, Lord, 218
Movement for the Independence of

Iran (GAMA), 175, 177
Muslim Brotherhood, 3-5, 8, 14, 24,

26, 48, 55, 57, 61, 64, 82-83, 94,

100-103, 108, 111, 122, 124, 127,
138, 141, 143-148, 152, 155-158,
160, 162-168, 171, 177, 181-184,
186, 188, 203-204, 208, 210-211,
221,223,225,229,231-232

Muslim Student Association, 26,
153, 170,178-187,201

MSA (Muslim Student Association)
Persian Speaking Group, 176, 182

Mussolini, Benito, 144

Mutawakkil, Caliph, 106

Nada, Youssef, 182
Nagorski, Zygmunt, 43
Naharandi, Hushang, 211
Nahidian, Bahram, 76-77, 176, 178,

180, 190
Naiser, Ishan, 110
Naraghi, Ehsan, 207
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, 211
Nasser, Gamal Abdul, 148, 160, 167
National Front, 44-45, 47, 204
National Institute for Agronomical

Research, 214
National Iranian Oil Company

(NIOC), 34-35, 57, 197, 199-200
National Security Council (NSC), 3,

6, 8-9, 16, 25, 41, 56, 68, 71, 86,

176-177, 189
Navabsafavi, Ayatollah, 82
Nazih, Hassan, 57, 204
Neeman, Yuval, 78
Neguib, General, 147
Newsom, David, 3
North American Islamic Trust, 181
North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO), 3, 8, 50, 57, 64, 67, 70,

79, 89, 162

i

. -i

Oakes, John, 207
O'Brien, Conor Cruise, 22
Office of Naval Intelligence, 71
Office of Naval Research, 71, 73-75

INDEX

239

Office of Strategic Servces (OSS),
217

OPEC, 14-15, 17, 19,56,62-63, 171
Orderof Hasafiyya Brothers, 142
Orientalists' Congress, 226-227
>rweil, George, 193
Oveissi, General Gholam Ali, 33
Oxford Movement, 113-114

Pahlevi, Farah Diba, Empress, 206,
211

Pahlavi, Princess Ashraf, 29; Faces

in a Mirror, 29, 83
Pahlavi, Prince Shafiq, 30
Pahlevi, Reza Khan, Shah of Iran,

21,82,139
Pahlavi, Reza, Shah of Iran, 1-4, 6-7,

9, 14-23, 25, 28-30, 32-35, 37-46,
49-51, 53, 59-60, 62, 77, 80-81, 83,
85-90, 93, 117, 127, 177, 188-190,
195, 197, 202-204, 206, 208, 210-
212, 214, 219, 230; Answer to His-
tory, 42

Palestine Liberation Organization

(PLO), 78, 166, 190
Palmerston, Lord, 114
Partowman, Mozaffar, 201
Pasha, Amin Uthman, 146
Pasha, Mustafa Riad, 122
Peccei, Aurelio, 160-161, 206, 210-

211

Pentagon, 3-4, 58, 64, 72, 75, 77
People s Committee on Iran, 27, 188
Permindex, 185

Persian-Speaking Group (MSA),
(See M ushm Student Association)

Peyman, Dr. Habibollah, 77

Pharaon, Ghaith, 171

Pharaon, Rashid, 171

Philby, Harold Adrian Russell
''Kim", 101, 119, 159, 216-220,
228-232

Philby, Harry St. -John Bridger, 119,
217, 220, 222-226, 228-230

Plato, 84, Republic, 84
Pol Pot, 70, 177, 192, 195,214
Porteaude La Marandiere, Francois,
90

Powell,Jody,5,68, 75
Precht, Henry, 3

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, ] 14
Prophet Mohammed (see Mo-
hammed)

Qaddafi, Muammar, 25, 78, 164,
168,212

Qanad-Abadi, Ayatollah ShamS, 80

Rabii, General Hossein, 49
Rafsanjani, Hashemi, 203
Rajalayn, Mohammed Jawad, 202
Ramadhan, Said, 160, 174
Ramazani, Rouhollah, 207
Rangel, Rep. Charles, 185
Rashad, Yusuf, 145-146
Rashdan, Mahmoud, 153-155
Rashid, Caliph Harun al-, 105
Reddaway, John, 160
Revolutionary Guard, 52, 55-56, 58,

93, 200, 203
Revolutionary Committees, 93
Revolutionary Council, 2, 190, 200
Ricks, Thomas, 3, 26-27, 195
Rida, Mohammed Rashid, 138-139,

143

Rockefeller, David, 59, 62
Roosevelt, Kermit, 81
Rostow, Eugene, 16-17
Roundtable, 130,221-222
Royal Institute of International Af-
fairs, 2,9, 146,159
Ruskin, John, 114

Russell, Lord Bertrand, 10, 101, 115,
213; Impact of Science on Soci-
ety, 10

Ryckmans, Jacques, 227

Ryckmans, MonseigneurGonzague,

227

240

HOSTACE TO KHOMEINI

Saati, Sheikh Ahmad Abd al-Rah-
manal-Bannaal-, 141-142

Sabbah, Hasan ibnal-, 102

Sabunji, Reverend Louis, 125

Sadat, Anwar, 144-145, 167, 169

Salahuddin, Daoud, (see David Bel-
field )

Samphan, Khieu, 214

Sanjabi, Karim, 44-45, 204

Sanua, James, 125

Sartre, Jean-Paul, 209

Sary, Ieng,192,214

Saud, Abu, 182-186

Savak, 22-23, 30, 45, 78-79, 84-87,
89,203,210

Savama, 26, 30, 52, 56, 76, 175-176,
179-180

Schlesinger, James, 69

Schmidt, Helmut, 6,14

Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, 87-88,

113-114, 116, 119, 121-124, 134,
136, 140,223
Secret Army Organization (OAS),
90

Secret Intelligence Service(SIS), 18,
20-21, 120, 123, 134-135,220-224,
227-228

Senussi Brotherhood (Senussi Order

oflkhwan), 119, 131-134,168-169
Senussi (Mohammed bin Ali al-Sen-

ussi al-Khattabi al-Idrisi al Has-

sani), 131-132
Serageddine, Fuad, 144
Setoudeh, Captain Siavash, 71-74-

77,178
Shaftsbury, Lord, 114
Shah, Idris; Book of the Book, 111;

The Sufis, U0
Shah of Iran (see Pahlavi)
Shahraies, Kambiz, 175-176
Shamma, Mohammed, 182
Shareatmadari, Ayatollah, 29, 46, 98
Shariati, Aga Muhammad Taqi, 209
Shariati, Ali, 27, 208-210
Sharif, Sultan Mohammed, 132

Shaw, Clay, 186

Sherman, George, 75

Siddique, Kawbkab, 44, 146, 180

Sidqi, Prime Minister,

Shiite, 31-36, 41, 78, 80, 91, 97, 100,

117, 121, 124, 127, 139, 196, 208-

209
Shin Beth, 84

Sirhindi, Sheikh Ahmed, 118

Smart, Sir Walter, 159

Smith, Margaret, 109; The Way of

The Mystics, 109
Smuts, General, 128
Socialist International, 23
Society for Moral Behavior, 142
Society for the Prevention of the

Forbidden, 142
Society of Jesus, 5, 114, 120, 211-

212,218,227, 232
Society of Muslim Brothers, 143
Solomon, Anthony, 11
Sommer, Theo, 206
Soustelle, Jacques, 215
Spadafora, Guitierezdi, Prince, 186
Special Operations Executive, 40,

218, 231-232
Stalin, Josef, 226

State Department (U.S.), 3-4, 16-17,
23, 42, 46, 55, 59-60, 72, 75, 90;
Global 2000 Report, 13

State Security and Intelligence Or-
ganization (see SAVAK)

Stephenson, Sir William, 232

Strategic Bombing Survey, 21

Students Following the Imam's
Line, 77

Suall, Irving, 232

Suez Canal Company, 143

Sufi, 6, 100, 109-114, 118-121, 123,
131, 135, 138-142, 208-209, 222

Sullivan, William H, 3

Sultan Qabus of Oman, 58

Sunni, 97, 100,166

Swann, Robert, 160

Sykes, Mark, 129

INDEX

241

Tabatabai, Ali Akbar, 76, 173, 175-

177, 179-180
Tahafut al-Falasifah (see Ghazali,

al)

Tajir, Mohammed, 160
Tavistock Institute for Human Re-
lations, 20, 145, 215
Tavistock, Lord, 226
Taylor, John B, , 161
Tehrani, 40

Theosophy (see Blavatsky, Mad-
ame)

Thomas, Colonel Bertran, 159
Toufanian, General, 52
Toynbee, Arnold, 101, 129, 222
Transnational Institute, 23, 215
Trilateral Commission, 41 , 67
Tuhami, Hassan al-, 167
Turabi, Sheikh, 168
Turner, Admiral Stansfield, 3, 38

Ummal-Kurah, 124

United Nations, 12, 46, 57-58, 63,

65,117, 133, 161,187-188, 232
U.S.A.-Canada Institute, 232

Vance, Cyrus, 3, 11, 23, 42, 58, 67,

70, 185,211
Veille, Paul, 212, 214
Victoria, Queen, 220
Vigier, Jean-Pierre, 215

Waddams, Herbert, 218

Wafd ("Delegation") Party, 136,

142,144-146
Wahhabi,119,132, 224
Waliullah, Shah of Delhi, 118
Williams, Harrison, Senator, 26
Wilton, A.H., 159
World Bank, 12-13,63,214
World Council of Churches, 190,

218

World Federalists, 117
World Festival of Islam Trust, 160
World Muslim Congress, 161
World Muslim League, 231

Yankelovitch, Daniel, 207

Yazdi, Ibrahim, 24-27, 39, 45, 56-59,

61,79, 176, 179, 182-183, 203,210
Yost, Charles, 206
Young, Andrew, 185, 190
Young Egypt, 123, 144
Young Men s Muslim Association,

143

Young Muslims Organization, 26-27
Young Turks, 116, 123, 139, 140
Youth of Mohammed, 166

Zaqhlul, Saad, 136

Zahedi, Ardeshir, 45-46

Zia ul-Haq (Ziaul Haq), General,

155, 162, 164, 171
Zonis, Marvin, 3, 46, 207, 208; The

Political Elite of Iran, 21

1

i

r

I-

5

IS

-I ■

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